DUKE 

UNIVERSITY 


LIBRARY 


PREFACE. 


T>2>17£ 


This  book  was  published  in  October,  1888,  while  the 
translator  was  in  Copenhagen.  The  great  interest  taken 
at  the  present  time  in  the  literature  of  Russia  and  in 
everything  which  relates  to  that  great  country  makes 
all  that  aids  in  giving  a  correct  impression  of  its 
political  and  social  condition  specially  acceptable.  Dr. 
Brandes  is  a  shrewd  observer  of  what  he  sees,  and 
has  an  established  reputation  as  an  acute  literary  critic. 
During  his  lecturing  tours  he  came  in  contact  with  the 
leading  men  of  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  and  Warsaw. 
The  brighter  aspects  of  the  Russian  problem  are  in¬ 
corporated  in  this  volume,  while  his  work  on  Poland 
contains  the  more  sombre  picture  of  the  oppression  to 
which  that  country  has  been  subjected. 

The  translator  desires  to  express  his  obligations  to 
Professor  Rasmus  B.  Anderson,  late  United  States 
Minister  to  Denmark,  for  his  advice  and  assistance,  as 
well  as  to  the  author,  who  is  himself  thoroughly  con¬ 
versant  with  the  English  language  and  literature. 

S.  C.  E. 

Concord,  N.H.,  May,  1889. 


iii 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/impressionsofrus01bran 


The  Russian  Empire. — Extent. — Natural  conditions. — Charac¬ 
teristics  of  Russia .  1 


IT. 


Country  and  cities. — St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow.  —  Homoge¬ 
neity  of  nature.  —  Difference  of  the  seasons .  5 


III. 

The  character  of  the  people.  —  Have  the  Russian  people  origi¬ 
nality  ? —  What  it  consists  of  in  ordinary  matters,  in  the  social, 
communal,  and  intellectual  domain.  —  The  popular  disposition 
and  popular  ideal.  —  The  Black  Earth . 17 

IV. 

Life  of  the  Russian  people. — No  popular  education. — Peasants 
and  workmen. — Superstition  and  ignorance.  —  Submissiveness. 
—  The  Russian  intelligentia.  —  “Nigilists”  of  both  sexes. — 
Contrast  between  the  standpoint  of  the  intelligent  youth  and  the 
common  people . 35 


V. 

Literary  and  artistic  festivals.  — The  official  world.  — Ministers.  — 
Censors. — Governors.  —  Ultra-conservative  youth  ...  G8 

VI. 

The  elite. — Intellectual  aristocracy  in  Russia  and  Poland. — The 
fundamental  interests  of  Russia  are  modern.  — Contact  with  the 
otlicial  circle.  —  Instability  and  capriciousness.  —  Family  dramas. 
—  Russian  types  of  aristocracy. — Two  currents  in  Russian 
intellectual  life:  the  European  and  Slavophilist. — The  Russian 

dilemma . 80 

v 


378878 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


VIL 

Feelings  in  regard  to  prospects  of  war.  —  Longing  for  defeat. — 
Antecedents  of  the  present  condition.  —  Court  circles. — Social 
influence  of  Herzen  and  Katkof.  — The  abolition  of  serfdom.  — 
The  significance  of  the  suppression  of  the  Polish  insurrection.  — 
Fundamental,  political,  and  religious  re-action.  —  Terrorists  and 
attempts  at  assassination.  —  Foreign  and  domestic  policies.  lfiS 

VIII. 

The  Russian  press.  —  Newspapers  and  periodicals.  —  Contemporary 
men  of  talent,  older  and  younger.  — Original  men  in  science  and 
literature.  —  The  Russian  public  and  its  receptiveness  .  .  130 


IX. 

Art.  —  Russian  characteristic  and  quality  of  imitation  in  archi¬ 
tecture  and  the  fine  arts.  — History  of  the  art  of  building  and  of 
religious  pictures.  —  Development  of  the  art  of  painting  from 
t-he  time  of  Catherine  to  the  present  time:  Brylof,  Ivanof, 
Kramskoi,  and  Riepin. — Sculpture:  Antokolski. — Industrial 
art. — Relation  between  the  course  of  development  of  art  and 
literature . 156 


LITERATURE. 


I. 

Herodotus  and  Ovid  concerning  the  country  and  its  climate.  — 
Herodotus  on  the  customs  and  myths  of  the  Scythians.  —  Resem¬ 
blance  between  a  Scythian  myth  and  one  related  in  the  hilini.  — 
Kola-Xais  and  Mikula.  — Ovid’s  account  of  the  Black  Sea  coast 
and  its  inhabitants. — Chronicle  of  Nestor. — Parallel  between 
the  accounts  of  Nestor  and  the  Icelandic  sagas.  — Scandinavians 
and  Russians. — Slavic  mythology. — The  bilini. — Parallel  be¬ 
tween  the  contents  of  these  and  the  old  Norse  myths  and  tra¬ 
ditions. —  The  song  of  Igor.  —  Its  characteristics,  and  extracts 
from  it . 177 


II. 

The  Russian  national  literature.  —  The  popular  ballads  of  Little 
Russia  and  Great  Russia.  —  Their  characteristics. — Russian 
love.  —  Lomonosof,  the  founder  of  the  modern  literature.  — 
How  far  he  is  a  typical  Russian.  — Derzhavin  and  classicism.  — 
Influence  of  Holberg  on  the  Russian  theatre. — Zlmkovski  and 
romanticism . 204 


CONTENTS. 


vii 


III. 

Pushkin.  —  Emancipation  of  poetry.  —  ITis  life  and  poetry.  — 
Pushkin  and  Byron.  —  Lermontof. — His  life  and  character. — 
His  poetry  and  Pushkin’s . 228 


IY. 

The  national  characteristic.  —  The  Little  Russians,  Gogol  and 
Shevtchenko.  —  Gogol’s  satire  and  genius.  —  His  ruin.  —  The 
history  of  Slievtehenko's  sufferings  and  his  poetry. — The  re¬ 
formers  Herzen  and  Tchemuishevski.  —  Herzen  and  Byelinski.  — 
Herzen  creates  a  public  sentiment. — Imprisonment  and  sen¬ 
tence  of  Tchemuishevski.  —  His  fate  and  ideas.  —  The  typical 
Russian  in  his  principal  work . 244 


Y. 

Turgenief,  the  first  Russian  author  who  becomes  cosmopolitan.  — 
His  pessimism.  —  He  is  an  artist  and  philosopher.  —  His  efforts 
for  the  liberation  of  the  serfs.  —  Characteristics  both  of  him  and 
of  his  novels . 271 


YI. 

Dostoyevski.  —  His  optimism.  —  nis  complex  character.  —  His  life 
of  Christian  emotion.  —  His  debut.  —  Byelinski  and  Dostoyevski. 

—  His  arrest  and  sentence.  — The  house  of  correction  in  Siberia. 

—  His  novels.  —  His  labors  as  a  Slavophilist  journalist  .  .  301 


VII. 

Tolstoi'.  — The  strength  of  his  nature  and  fancy.  — The  epic  char¬ 
acter  of  his  imagination.  —  II  is  realism  and  power  of  divination.  — 
Ilis  historical  portraits.  —  Their  .defects.  —  His  fatalism. — His 
description  of  how  men  die  — His  ideal  of  a  return  to  nature.  — 
His  pessimism  and  the  French.  —  His  Christian  socialism,  so 
typically  Russian.  —  His  life  and  teaching.  —  His  labors  for  the 
elevation  and  education  of  the  people. —  Ilis  portraits. — What 
they  teach.  —  Kramskoi’s  portrait  and  Riepin’s  painting.  — 
Tolstoi  as  Prince  of  the  Ploughshare.  —  Black  Earth  .  .  .  337 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  cause  of  my  trip  to  Russia  in  1887  was  an  invi¬ 
tation  by  the  Russian  Authors’  Association  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures  in  French.  They 
proposed  to  make  all  the  arrangements,  if  I  would  give 
one-fourth  of  the  receipts  to  their  poor-fund. 

While  I  was  in  St.  Petersburg,  I  received  a  similar 
invitation  from  Count  Kapnist,  the  curator  of  the  uni¬ 
versity  in  Moscow,  who  also  asked  for  the  same  portion 
of  the  receipts  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  students. 
On  my  way  to  St.  Petersburg  I  also  visited  Helsingfors. 
After  my  lectures  in  Moscow,  I  spent  some  time  in  a 
villa  in  Central  Russia,  twenty  hours’  journey  by  rail 
south  of  Moscow.  From  there  I  went  to  Smolensk,  and 
from  Smolensk  to  Warsaw. 

Thus  in  three  months  I  became  acquainted  with  widely 
separated  parts  of  the  country,  and  some  of  the  most 
important  of  this  great  empire.  I  had  the  opportunity 
of  observing  both  city  and  country  life.  I  saw  Russia 
both  in  winter  and  summer  garb.  Tire  peculiar  condi¬ 
tions  under  which  I  travelled  brought  me  in  connection 
with  several  hundred  people  of  different  races  and  of 
different  classes  in  society ;  I  met  residents  of  Great 
and  Little  Russia,  Finns  and  Swedes,  Armenians  and 
Poles,  of  both  sexes,  and  was  brought  into  close  relations 
with  fashionable  and  common  people,  conservatives  and 

ix 


X 


INTRODUCTION. 


liberals,  lawyers  and  doctors,  authors  and  artists,  princes 
and  professors,  journalists  and  peasants,  officials  and 
menials. 

Although  I  am  giving  my  impressions,  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  forget  how  imperfect  must  he  my  description  of 
the  Russian  Empire  in  its  entirety.  I  am  not  unmind¬ 
ful  of  how  little  of  what  I  did  see  I  was  able  to  under¬ 
stand  fully,  nor  of  how  inconsiderable  a  portion  of  a 
country  like  Russia  and  of  its  inhabitants  was  placed 
before  me.  But  naturally  I  believe  in  my  capacity  for 
observation  and  in  the  soundness  of  my  judgments. 

G.  B. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


i. 

Alexander  von  Humboldt,  in  order  to  give  a  forci¬ 
ble  illustration  of  the  immense  extent  of  the  Russian 
Empire,  once  compared  it  to  the  moon.  If  you  look  at 
the  moon  when  it  is  full,  you  see  in  the  hemisphere  of 
the  satellite  which  is  before  you  a  smaller  territory  than 
that  of  Russia.  About  fifty  thousand  square  miles  are 
still  wanting. 

No  other  country  has  so  large  an  extent  of  territory 
in  one  division.  It  is  one-sixth  part  of  the  area  of  the 
land  of  our  globe,  and,  although  sparsely  inhabited,  has 
a  population  of  about  ninety-seven  million  souls,  of 
whom  sixty-seven  millions  are  of  Russian  lineage. 

So  far  as  inanimate  nature  is  concerned,  the  situation 
of  the  Russian  Empire  corresponds  to  its  immense  size. 
Roundless  plains  extend  from  the  German  frontier  far 
into  Central  Asia,  and  from  the  extreme  north  to  the 
Black  Sea.  In  one  of  its  remote  quarters  are  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  Caucasus,  which  rise,  from  a  level  lower  than  that 
of  the  ocean,  to  a  height  far  above  the  highest  of  the  Euro¬ 
pean  Alps.  In  the  northwest,  it  has  the  largest  lakes  of 
Europe,  the  Ladoga  and  the  Onega,  and  in  the  south, 
the  Caspian  Sea,  the  largest  in  the  world.  Finally,  its 
rivers  are  as  vast  as  its  plains,  its  mountains,  and  its 
lakes.  The  largest  of  them,  the  Volga,  is  the  longest 
and  widest  river  in  Europe.  Although  it  does  not  dis¬ 
charge  so  large  a  volume  of  water  as  might  be  expected, 

1 


2 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


and  as  the  Danube  does,  for  example,  yet  that  is  on 
account  of  the  flatness  of  the  country  and  the  scantiness 
of  the  rainfall.  Just  as  whole  streams  in  Southern  Rus- 
sia  are  swallowed  up  by  the  earth  and  evaporated  as  they 
flow,  so  the  immense  flood  of  the  Volga,  pouring  into  the 
basin  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  has  not  sufficed  in  a  hundred 
years  to  raise  the  water  level. 

The  great  steppes,  which  have  been  compared  to  the 
ocean,  have  none  of  the  ever  varying  aspects  of  the  sea. 
Unchanging  uniformity  is  their  characteristic.  The 
greatest  river,  which  is  as  broad  as  a  sound,  and  in  com¬ 
parison  with  which  the  Rhine  is  short,  lacks  the  impetu¬ 
osity  and  turmoil  of  less  imposing  rivers.  A  certain 
mighty  sluggishness  is  peculiar  to  its  flow.  This  slug¬ 
gishness  as  well  as  this  uniformity  is  Russian. 

In  this  empire,  where  everything  is  immense,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  natural  conditions  which  is  mild  or  tem¬ 
perate.  This  great  tract  of  land  is  like  a  body  without 
limbs.  It  has  no  indentations  of  any  consequence ;  is 
not  cut  up  into  half-island  formations  or  divided  into 
islands,  like  the  whole  of  Northern,  Western,  and  South¬ 
ern  Europe.  It  has  a  continental  climate :  that  is,  long, 
severe  winters  and  burning  summers.  The  ocean,  which 
always  tempers  the  cold  and  heat,  is  remote  ;  and  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  always  softening,  is  not  felt 
here. 

Just  as  this  immense  continent  has  no  indentations, 
so  is  its  uniformity  unbroken  by  either  mountains  or 
valleys.  This  land  of  forests,  black  mould,  and  steppes 
is  one  great  plain.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  cold 
blasts  from  the  Arctic  Ocean  sweep  down  over  the  whole 
empire  without  meeting  any  obstruction,  and  why  the 
moisture  is  wanting  which  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the 
Baltic  and  Mediterranean  Seas  give  to  Europe.  With 


NATURAL  CONDITIONS. 


3 


the  exception  of  the  Crimea  and  Caucasus,  no  part  of 
this  broad  land  has  a  southern  climate.  As  some  one 
has  expressed  it,  Russia  has  a  summer  but  no  south. 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  are  very  great  extremes  in 
this  homogeneous  climate.  The  average  summer  temper¬ 
ature  on  the  northern  coasts  of  Russia  (37°  Fahr.)  is 
lower  than  the  winter  temperature  in  Sevastopol.  But 
January  in  Odessa  has  the  same  temperature  as  January 
in  Christiania;  and  although  Moscow  is  on  the  same 
degree  of  latitude  as  Copenhagen  and  Edinburgh,  the 
average  winter  temperature  is  10°  Fahr.  in  the  Russian 
city,  33°  in  the  Danish,  and  38°  in  the  Scotch. 

Yet  there  is  hardly  any  real  difference  between  the 
natural  conditions  of  European  Russia  and  Siberia  ex¬ 
cept  the  greater  severity. 

From  that  region,  in  the  north,  where  only  the  rein¬ 
deer  can  exist,  to  that  country,  in  the  south,  which  pro¬ 
duces  the  grape  and  Indian  corn,  there  is  in  European 
Russia  a  gradual  transition ;  yet  to  the  Western-European 
neither  the  vegetable  nor  the  animal  life  presents  any¬ 
thing  unfamiliar  or  extraordinary.  Both  the  plants  and 
animals  that  are  common  with  us  are  found  in  the  larger 
part  of  the  empire.  Of  wild  beasts  there  are  found 
some  bears  in  all  the  forests,  while  both  in  the  forests 
and  on  the  grassy  plains  and  some  of  the  steppes  there 
are  wolves  in  great  numbers.  The  number  of  wolves  in 
European  Russia  is  estimated  to  be  about  175,000.  These 
wolves  destroy  annually  180,000  head  of  cattle,  560,000 
sheep,  100,000  dogs,  besides  150  human  beings.  Each 
wolf  is  estimated  to  consume  annually  the  value  of  about 
80  rubles. 

Except  this  one  wild  beast,  however,  there  is  no  dan¬ 
gerous  or  uncommon  animal.  While  the  inorganic  world 
in4his  land  is  on  a  grand  scale,  the  vegetable  and  animal 


4 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


products  are  tlie  reverse.  The  trees,  even  in  the  forests, 
are  not  tall,  and  the  whole  animal  world  has  no  striking 
feature. 

The  decidedly  essential  feature  which  characterizes 
Russia  is  uniformity  notwithstanding  the  immensity  of 
everything.  Although  the  country  is  enormously  large, 
it  is  monotonous.  Russia  is  a  land  not  only  of  far-reach¬ 
ing  plains,  long  and  broad  rivers,  uniform  climate,  but 
also  of  regular  geological  formation.  This  immense 
country  also  constitutes  one  organic  unit,  since  the  wood¬ 
land  cannot  do  without  the  grain-land,  the  grain-land 
without  the  steppes,  nor  the  steppes  without  the  wood¬ 
land.  The  steppes  need  the  trees,  and  the  woodland 
needs  the  cattle.  And  so  also  the  country  near  the 
coast  feels  the  want  of  the  interior,  and  the  interior  of 
the  coast.  As  Count  Moltke  has  said,  in  his  “  Letters 
from  Russia,”  “No  part  can  do  without  the  other:  the 
forests  of  the  north  cannot  dispense  with  the  grain-pro¬ 
ducing  south,  nor  can  the  industrious  interior  spare 
either  of  the  other  parts.”  The  vision  that  this  great 
empire  will  be  broken  up  into  a  number  of  small  king¬ 
doms  will  therefore  hardly  be  realized.  What  nature 
has  united  geographically,  man  cannot  separate ;  and 
what  it  has  separated,  man  cannot  unite.  The  geogra¬ 
phy  of  the  country,  which  has  prevented  the  union  of 
the  three  Scandinavian  nations  into  one,  keeps  this  sixth 
part  of  the  earth  together.1 

1  A.  Leroy-Beaulieu :  “  The  Empire  of  the  Tsars  and  theRussias,” 
vol.  1,  bk.  1.  Elise'e  Reclus:  “New  Universal  Geography,”  vol.  5. 


II. 


Russia  is  an  agricultural  country.  There  are  compar¬ 
atively  few  cities.  The  provincial  towns  all  resemble 
one  another.  When  you  have  seen  one  or  two,  you  know 
them  all.  Such  a  provincial  town  has  a  public  park,  a 
cathedral,  a  governor’s  palace,  and  a  hospital.  So  much 
is  essential ;  the  remainder  depends  on  the  better  or 
worse  condition  of  the  inhabitants.  Still,  there  is  one 
and  a  very  important  thing  you  are  sure  to  find  —  a 
prison,  —  and  in  a  country  town  like  Lomja,  which  has  a 
population  of  twenty-five  thousand,  there  is  one  with 
six  hundred  inmates. 

Life  in  such  a  Russian  country  town,  on  a  clear  sum¬ 
mer  day,  however  little  it  may  be  praised  by  native 
authors,  sometimes  appears  very  attractive.  The  gay 
costumes,  the  red  shirts  of  the  men  and  the  embroidered 
jackets  of  the  women,  shine  brightly  in  the  sun.  Of  those 
which  I  have  seen,  Briansk,  a  manufacturing  town  on 
the  river  Diesna,  was  a  type  of  the  Russian  monotony. 
On  the  other  hand,  Smolensk  1  is  delightfully  situ¬ 
ated  on  both  banks  of  the  Dnieper.  The  larger  part  of 
the  town  is  on  the  left  bank,  which  has  a  steep  descent 
to  the  river,  so  that  the  numerous  domes  and  spires  of 
the  churches,  seen  from  the  opposite  side,  appear  tower¬ 
ing  over  the  landscape  in  strong  relief.  The  genera] 
situation,  however,  on  account  of  the  flatness  of  the  land, 
is  not  attractive,  and  the  town,  therefore,  is  only  interest 

1  Pronounced  Smahlyensk,  with  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable. 

5 


6 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


ing  to  the  traveller  as  a  commercial  and  manufacturing 
town  or  for  the  historical  associations,  like  all  the  towns 
which  Napoleon’s  winter  campaign  has  made  renowned. 
The  intellectual  life  in  these  provincial  towns  presents  a 
sad  picture :  it  is  cards  and  brandy,  brandy  and  cards. 

With  the  exception  of  Finland,  Poland,  and  the  prov¬ 
inces  on  the  Baltic,  each  of  which  has  its  own  character, 
all  the  intellectual  life  in  Russia  is  concentrated  in  the 
two  capitals,  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow. 

At  the  very  moment  when  the  traveller  at  the  frontier 
takes  the  Russian  railway  train,  there  are  three  things 
which  meet  him  like  messages  from  a  strange  world : 
the  language,  which,  with  its  rich  and  soft  melody,  has 
not  the  least  resemblance  to  any  of  the  Western-European 
tongues ;  the  alphabet,  of  which  some  of  the  characters 
are  new  to  us  and  others  have  a  different  meaning  than 
in  ours  (as,  for  instance,  H  is  used  for  N) ;  and  finally  a 
computation  of  time,  which  tears  you  away  from  your 
customary  almanac  by  rolling  the  time  back  for  twelve 
days,  and  thereby  burns  the  bridge  to  the  civilization 
of  Western  and  Southern  Europe.  Would  that  it  were 
only  in  these  twelve  days  that  Russia  was  behind  the 
rest  of  Europe ! 

St.  Petersburg  is  generally  the  first  place  visited  by 
the  traveller.  St.  Petersburg  is,  as  said  by  Peter  the 
Great  in  his  old  comparison,  the  window  which  the  cre¬ 
ator  of  modern  Russia  built  towards  the  west.  It  must 
be  conceded  that  for  by  far  the  largest  part  of  the  year 
the  view  through  the  window  is  obscured  by  frost  flow¬ 
ers.  What  Russia  most  needed  in  that  time  was  an  open 
port.  Archangel,  in  the  north,  was  almost  continuously 
closed  by  ice.  Kronstadt  was  added,  but  that  also  is 
shut  up  for  half  the  year.  Since  then  the  empire  has 
gained  new  harbors,  such  as  Vladivostok,  in  the  far  east, 


ST.  PETERSBURG. 


7 


but  not  one  of  them  is  free  from  ice.  Only  from  the 
ports  on  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Sea  of  Azof  is  navigation 
almost  always  free,  but  these  do  not  afford  Russia  free 
approach  to  the  outside  world,  since  vessels  can  always 
be  stopped  at  the  Dardanelles,  so  long  as  Constantinople 
is  in  the  possession  of  the  Turk.  This  accounts  for  the 
constant  and  ever  increasing  desire  of  Russia  to  possess 
Constantinople. 

By  the  founding  of  St.  Petersburg  the  Tsar  desired 
to  bring  his  country  nearer  to  the  west.  The  city,  as  has 
been  said,  was  at  once  a  symbol  of  his  determination 
and  the  means  for  its  execution.  Although  at  the  same 
time  he  allowed  a  canal  to  be  constructed  between  the 
Neva  and  the  Volga,  he  strove  to  force  the  wealth  of  the 
land  from  the  east  and  south  up  against  the  current, 
and  to  open  an  outlet  for  it  to  the  west. 

St.  Petersburg  is  a  city  intersected  by  an  enormous 
number  of  canals  and  streams ;  it  is  built  in  a  swamp 
and  surrounded  by  a  desert.  It  is  an  artificial  city,  with¬ 
out  any  country  naturally  tributary,  and  it  derives  the 
most  of  its  support  from  officials  and  soldiers,  although 
its  trade  and  manufactures  are  of  late  more  important. 
It  is  an  unhealthy  city,  in  which,  as  in  the  old  capital  of 
the  empire  also,  the  number  of  deaths  is  so  much  larger 
than  the  number  of  births  that  the  population,  suffering 
a  loss  of  one  or  two  thousand  a  year,  would  die  out,  were 
it  not  for  a  constant  immigration.  It  is  a  half-educated 
city,  in  which,  at  the  present  time,  three  hundred  thou¬ 
sand  of  the  nine  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  cannot 
read  or  write.  Finally,  it  is  a  beautiful  city,  in  grand 
style,  with  half  European  and  half  barbarian  splendor. 

For  the  foundation  of  this  city  in  the  five  years  from 
1712  to  1716,  Peter  the  Great  caused  more  than  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  thousand  workmen  to  be  brought  into  the 


8 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Neva  swamp,  where  the  most  of  them  died  of  fever,  con¬ 
tagious  diseases,  or  hunger.  To  compel  the  masons  to 
seek  employment  in  this  place  only,  he  prohibited  the 
erection  of  stone  houses  in  the  whole  empire,  under  a 
penalty  of  confiscation  of  property  and  banishment  to 
Siberia,  and  also  commanded  every  nobleman  who  owned 
more  than  thirty  peasant  families  to  build  a  house  in 
this  new  capital,  the  situation  and  size  of  which  were 
exactly  determined  as  the  conditions  of  the  individuals 
brought  them  under  one  or  another  class  of  household¬ 
ers.  Perhaps  in  remembrance  of  what  he  owed  to  Hol¬ 
land,  he  gave  to  the  city,  when  it  was  built,  his  name  in 
its  Dutch  form,  Piterburg. 

It  has  developed  into  a  city  of  luxury,  where  the 
number  of  servants  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  the 
inhabitants  exceeds  that  of  any  other  city  in  Europe.  In 
1870  the  number  of  families  in  Berlin  which  had  three 
domestics  was  two  per  cent  of  the  whole  number,  in  St. 
Petersburg  it  was  twelve  per  cent ;  and  for  that  year  the 
percentage  of  families  in  Berlin  having  eleven  domestics 
was  not  given,  but  the  number  of  such  families  in  St. 
Petersburg  was  one  per  cent. 

Driving  from  the  railway  station  into  St.  Petersburg, 
you  constantly  expect  to  see  the  Neva  before  you —  St. 
Petersburg  and  the  Neva  being  so  closely  connected  in 
our  minds.  But  no  !  this  is  only  a  canal,  and  that  only  the 
river  Fontanka,  which  empties  into  the  Neva.  Finally, 
the  mighty  stream  lies  before  you,  broad  as  an  arm  of 
the  sea,  ice-bound  and  covered  with  snow,  between  the 
tall  quays  and  the  islands,  on  one  of  which  towers  the 
fortress  of  Petro-Pavlovsk,  with  its  gilded  spire  glis¬ 
tening  in  the  sun.  Then  a  world  of  reddish  yellow 
palaces  is  disclosed,  which,  like  all  the  Russian  govern¬ 
ment  buildings,  awaken  surprise  by  their  wonderful 


ST.  PET  Eli  SB  URG. 


9 


color,  being  partly  suggestive  of  a  prison  hue  and  partly 
of  a  flesh  tint. 

Before  the  Winter  Palace  the  stranger  is  startled  by 
the  sight  of  a  strange,  ugly  iron  shed,  which  disfigures 
the  beautiful  square.  This  shed,  however,  gives  a  cor¬ 
rect  impression  of  the  climate  of  the  country.  It  is  as 
necessary  as  the  palace,  even  more  necessary.  In  the 
middle  of  it  there  is  a  huge  caldron,  which  in  winter 
nights  is  filled  with  glowing  coals  so  that  the  coachmen 
and  servants,  while  waiting  for  their  masters  in  the  pal¬ 
ace,  may  not  freeze  to  death. 

Here  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Neva  are  also  the  huge, 
gay-colored  buildings  of  the  Admiralty,  and  St.  Isaac’s 
Church,  built  wholly  of  granite  and  marble.  And  here 
also  the  stranger  first  comes  in  contact  with  the  pro¬ 
pensity  of  the  Russian  to  work  out  his  results  by  the  aid 
of  the  strength  and  the  richness  of  the  material,  rather 
than  by  the  beauty  of  the  design.  In  the  interior,  the 
floor  and  walls  are  covered  with  polished  marble  of 
different  kinds  :  there  are  columns  of  lapis-lazuli,  sixteen 
or  seventeen  feet  high,  and  of  malachite,  thirty  feet 
high,  with  gilded  bases  and  capitals ;  but  there  are  no 
forms  that  impress  themselves  on  your  memory.  Great 
art  first  meets  the  eye  when  it  dwells  on  Falconet’s  bold 
memorial  Peter  the  Great,  where  the  Tsar  is  seen  gallop¬ 
ing  up  a  block  of  Finnish  granite  on  a  rearing  horse  —  per¬ 
haps  the  best  equestrian  statue  of  modern  times.  There 
are  also  along  the  Neva  a  large  number  of  fine  buildings 
in  the  Italian  and  French  style,  transplanted  here.  There 
are  also  very  numerous  chapels  and  shrines,  before 
which  every  passer-by  crosses  himself  again  and  again, 
in  case  he  does  not  stop  and  say  his  prayers.  On  the 
Neva  and  on  the  quays  there  is  a  constant  succession  of 
sleighs.  These  sleighs,  public  or  private,  have  only  a 


10 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


single  seat,  for  two  persons,  generally  a  gentleman  and 
a  lady,  and  the  man  and  woman  sit  in  such  a  manner 
that  he  always  has  his  arm  about  her  waist,  —  probably 
to  prevent  her  being  thrown  out. 

Everybody  drives,  even  the  servants  who  are  sent 
about  the  city.  The  distances  are  so  great  that,  as  a 
rule,  it  is  necessary,  and  there  are  twenty-five  thousand 
public  coachmen  at  command.  People  bargain  about 
the  price  of  every  trip ;  and  in  the  outset,  when  the 
stranger  imperfectly  understands  Russian,  nothing  is 
more  common  than  this  conversation :  “  What  do  you 
ask  ?  ”  — •  “  Fifteen  kopecks.”  —  “Not  at  all !  I  will  not 
give  more  than  twenty-five.” 

We  drive  from  here  to  the  Nevski  Prospekt,  on  a  day 
in  early  spring,  with  pure,  clear  air  and  sun.  The  driver 
is  a  Russian  peasant.  During  the  summer  he  cultivates 
his  land,  but  in  the  winter  he  earns  his  bread  as  izvosli- 
chik.  He  sits  there,  with  his  face  covered  with  beard, 
under  a  low-crowned  hat,  in  a  long  and  loose  coat,  which 
from  the  waist  down  is  shaped  like  a  wide,  puckered  shirt 
or  a  loose  dressing-gown,  and  extends  quite  down  to  the 
feet.  He  wears  an  embroidered  scarf  about  the  waist. 
Strange  to  say,  in  the  museum  at  the  Hermitage,  among 
the  antiquities  found  in  the  earth  at  Kertsh,  in  the 
Crimea,  on  the  ornaments  like  bracelets,  are  to  be  found 
figures  of  bearded  Scythians,  who  in  physiognomy,  as 
well  as  in  dress,  remind  one  of  these  peasant  coachmen. 
The  type  seems  to  have  prevailed  ever  since. 

It  is  a  genuine  scene  of  a  great  city,  this  Nevski  Pros¬ 
pekt  in  the  sparkling  sunlight,  with  three  and  four  rows 
of  carriages  side  by  side,  in  an  endless  procession.  Ele¬ 
gant  men  and  women  are  in  the  carriages.  On  the  side¬ 
walks  are  the  less  wealthy  people,  the  women  wrapped  up 
like  mummies  for  fear  of  the  cold,  —  although  the  worst 


STREET  LIFE. 


11 


of  it  is  over,  —  and  apparently  wholly  unable  to  dress 
becomingly.  The  impression  made  by  most  of  them  is 
trivial  and  insignificant,  but  the  appearance  of  some  who 
have  striven  to  be  noticed  for  their  dress  arrests  the 
attention.  I  recall  such  a  one  in  a  glaring  costume  of 
light  green  velvet,  shining  like  a  scarabæus,  and  another 
in  a  bright  yellow  velvet  dress  with  embroidery  down 
the  back.  Some  of  the  coachmen  look  like  genuine  bar¬ 
barians,  being  dressed  in  red  and  gold  ;  those  of  the 
foreign  ministers  have  a  triangle  in  gold  embroidery  on 
the  back  and  the  colors  of  the  country  on  the  front  of 
the  hat.  Our  coachman  and  all  coachmen  cross  them¬ 
selves  on  the  forehead,  the  mouth,  and  the  breast  before 
every  shrine  and  before  every  one  of  the  numerous  chap¬ 
els  from  whose  burning  lamp  a  light  is  thrown  into  the 
street.  Most  of  this  comes  from  habit.  There  is  far 
less  piety  than  there  would  seem  to  be  from  all  the  cross¬ 
ing  and  bowing,  in  the  open  streets,  to  which  the  stranger 
is  a  witness.  While  they  are  making  the  sign  of  the 
cross  with  the  right  hand,  they  are  scratching  themselves 
on  the  back  with  the  left. 

Some  of  the  men  have  extremely  expressive  counte¬ 
nances.  Almost  all  the  women  have  chlorosis.  The 
climate  compels  them  to  sit  too  much  indoors.  The 
water  is  undrinkable  and  the  food  bad.  The  poorer  peo¬ 
ple  live  on  barley  bread,  cabbage  soup,  and  porridge  in 
this  land  whose  temperature  demands  more  nutritious 
food  than  in  England.  And  the  national  drinks  —  tea, 
kvas,  and  vodka  (brandy)  —  have  not  the  nutriment  of 
Germany’s  lighter  or  England’s  stronger  ales.  In  St. 
Petersburg  anæmia  is  met  everywhere. 

Life  in  the  principal  streets  is  quite  modern.  But  in 
the  middle  of  the  Nevski,  near  the  Kazan  Church,  behind 
the  memorial  of  Catherine  the  Second,  you  look  into  the 


12 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Gostinny  Dvor,  bazaars  with  arcades,  stall  against  stall, 
a  spectacle  which  is  anything  but  modern.  You  catch  a 
glimpse  of  old  Russia  in  the  bearded  peasant  (muzhik) 
with  his  bast  shoes,  and  his  patched  caftan  or  sheepskin, 
and  then  you  see  the  priests  in  brown  robes,  reaching 
to  their  feet,  a  black  cap  over  their  long  hair,  and  with 
an  embroidered  belt  to  which  the  beard  almost  reaches. 
They  trade  with  the  merchant,  who  stands  there  in  an¬ 
tique  Russian  fur  cap,  while  his  wife,  with  real  pearls 
about  her  neck,  stands  by  and  listens. 

Nevertheless,  if  you  really  wish  to  see  old  Russia  you 
must  go  to  Moscow.  It  is  easily  done ;  for,  though  St. 
Petersburg  and  Moscow  are  two  separate  worlds,  it  is 
arranged  by  the  modern  means  of  conveyance  that  by 
leaving  the  first  in  the  afternoon  the  other  is  reached 
the  next  morning.  The  two  capitals  are  united  by  the 
only  really  express  train  in  Russia. 

On  the  more  elevated  land  in  the  interior,  surrounded 
by  a  wall  which  here  and  there  rises  into  towers  with 
green  roofs,  lies  a  city  which,  in  its  different  quarters, 
alternately  possesses  the  characteristics  of  a  great  capi¬ 
tal,  a  provincial  city,  and  a  country  town.  Here  there 
are  fine  streets,  with  tall  houses  and  passages,  as  in  Paris, 
and  there  interminable  ranges  of  low  houses  with  spa¬ 
cious  gardens.  You  can  drive  from  this  fine  quarter 
into  one  which  is  almost  wholly  without  pavements.  In 
some  places,  it  is  like  the  country  in  this  city  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants  and  four  hundred  churches. 
There  is  open  ground  enough,  but  hardly  any  place 
where  people  can  walk,  —  no  promenades  except  in  the 
outskirts.  Yet  everything  is  laid  out  on  a  broad  scale; 
everything  has  the  stamp  of  repose,  just  as  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  everything  seems  to  be  planned  for  keen  and  imme¬ 
diate  eniovment. 


THE  KREMLIN. 


18 


Here  the  traveller  would  think  he  was  on  the  highway 
into  Asia.  Strange  sights  are  to  be  seen  :  a  Tatar  wed- 
ding-party  in  modern  carriages  ;  dark  countenances,  under 
turbans,  in  elegant  European  landaus.  That  was  the 
sight  whi?h  first  met  me  in  Moscow.  Everything  is  to 
be  seen  here  which  we  are  accustomed  to  imagine  as  gay 
in  the  streets  of  a  city :  Persians  with  their  tall  sheep¬ 
skin  caps,  Turks  with  their  fezes,  and  pagan  Kalmucks ; 
it  is  perhaps  as  unusual  a  variety  as  the  sight  of  Turks 
and  Persians  in  the  streets  of  Venice. 

The  stranger’s  first  visit  is  to  the  Kremlin.  Here  he 
stands  on  the  navel  of  Russia.  This  is  a  holy  place  for 
Russian  patriotism.  Here  is  the  central  point  of  the 
empire ;  here  the  Tsar  is  crowned.  Ascending  the  high¬ 
est  tower,  Ivan  Veliky,  you  can  see  an  immense  city  on 
every  side,  with  gilded  and  green  cupolas  and  roofs. 
Here  stood  Napoleon  with  his  marshals  in  1812  and  saw 
the  commencement  of  the  conflagration  of  the  city.  Here 
stood  Madame  de  Stael  and  uttered  the  well-known  words, 
“  Rome  of  the  Tatars !  ”  which  depicts  in  a  masterly 
manner  the  impression  made  by  the  fountain-head  of  the 
church  of  a  barbaric  race.  But  the  old  French  proverb, 
“  Scratch  a  Russian  and  you  will  find  a  Tatar,”  contains 
a  truth,  though  with  so  many  limitations  that  it  will  be 
wrong  nine  times  in  ten.  The  harsh  rule  of  the  Mongo¬ 
lian  for  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  (1220-1480)  in  fact 
put  Russia  far  back  and  had  its  baneful  influence  on  the 
Russian  character ;  but  it  did  not  succeed  in  changing  the 
race,  even  if  it  made  the  blood  less  pure.  The  Russian 
flesh  and  blood  is  concealed  under  many  Tatarean 
princely  titles ;  under  many  customs  originating  with 
the  Mongolians,  the  Slavic  temperament  has  held  its  own 
incorrupted.  That  appeared  when  Peter  the  Great  un¬ 
dertook  to  scratch  the  Asiatic  and  found  a  European 


14 


IMPRESSION S  OF  RUSSIA. 


under  the  foreign  crust.  Even  if  Kief  is  more  entitled 
to  honor  from  the  Russians  than  Moscow,  on  account  of 
its  greater  antiquity,  and  even  if  it  is,  like  Jerusalem,  the 
holy  city,  —  still,  Moscow  is  always,  for  the  inhabitants 
of  Greater  Russia,  the  mother  city,  Moskva  matushka. 

The  vivid  colors  of  these  roofs,  the  bright  gilding  of 
the  cupolas  of  the  churches,  all  this,  which  in  a  milder 
climate  would  be  in  bad  taste,  has  its  foundation  in  the 
climatic  and  historical  relations,  and  most  of  all  in  the 
length  and  kind  of  the  winters.  If  you  conceive  a  win¬ 
ter  where  the  snow  for  two  hundred  days  together  covers 
everything,  woods  and  fields,  roads  and  streets  and  roofs 
of  the  houses,  with  its  monotonous  sheet,  you  can  under¬ 
stand  that  some  splendor  is  needed  in  the  air  to  enliven 
the  world  when  the  sun  does  shine  for  a  day. 

Winter  is  the  characteristic  season  in  Russia.  Even 
if  the  wind  is  cold,  still  it  is  not  by  far  so  strong  as  in 
Denmark,  so  that  a  greater  degree  of  cold  can  be  endured 
than  here.  Winter  stamps  the  whole  life  and  character 
of  the  people. 

The  peasant  is  obliged  to  live  immured  in  his  hut, 
with  the  walls  and  windows  carefully  closed  to  the  cold. 
He  lives  in  bad  air,  by  the  light  of  a  blazing  pine  knot, 
close  to  the  great  stove,  on  the  top  of  which  the  whole 
family  sleep  at  night.  He  sleeps  with  his  clothes  on, 
including  his  sheepskin.  He  does  not  undress  the  whole 
week  through,  except  when,  on  Saturday,  he  takes  his 
Russian  bath.  But  with  his  sheepskin  he  puts  on  his 
vermin  again. 

With  the  higher  classes  the  long  winter  has  this  re¬ 
sult,  that  night  is  turned  into  day.  Social  life  in  St. 
Petersburg  is  even  in  a  higher  degree  than  in  Warsaw  a 
night  life.  Even  the  most  of  the  sleighing  parties  take 
place  in  the  night.  In  the  silent  quiet,  the  three  horses 


DIFFERENCE  OF  THE  SEASONS. 


15 


abreast  with  the  light  sleighs  whistle  over  the  snow  and 
ice  fields.  It  is  the  combination  of  the  silence  of  death 
and  the  furious  speed  which  amuses  and  satisfies  the 
Russian  disposition. 

In  a  southerly  land  like  Italy  vegetation  is  somewhat- 
uniform  during  the  whole  year.  The  laurels  and  the  olive 
trees  are  always  green.  In  Russia,  summer  and  winter 
present  two  entirely  different  countries  and  aspects  of 
life.  For  a  typical  impression  of  winter  the  life  in  Si¬ 
beria  in  that  season  may  be  taken  as  described  by  Koro¬ 
lenko,  the  poet  of  Little  Russia,  who  returned  from  an 
involuntary  residence  of  several  years  in  the  department 
of  Yakutsk.  He  lived  in  a  little  house  thatched  with 
deerskin.  In  such  a  dwelling,  at  the  approach  of  winter, 
blocks  of  ice  are  substituted  for  the  windows,  which 
are  replaced  by  panes  of  glass  only  when  melted  in  the 
spring.  There  is  never  a  single  day  of  thaw  in  winter. 
It  begins  by  barely  freezing  and  gradually  falling  to  fifty 
to  sixty  degrees  below  zero.  In  order  to  breathe,  they 
wrap  themselves  up  in  a  sort  of  boa  or  respirator  of  fur, 
made  of  squirrel’s  tails.  The  sun  breaks  through  the 
icy  panes  in  strange  and  beautiful  rainbow  hues. 

Rut  the  approach  of  spring  awakes  a  new  existence. 
The  fluid  element,  which  had  vanished,  returns.  The 
real  spring  is  detestable.  But  this  disagreeable  spring 
thaw  lasts  only  a  short  time,  and  is  hardly  considered  in 
Russia  as  one  of  the  seasons.  Still  nothing  can  give  the 
Western-European  a  conception  of  the  effect  on  the 
mind  and  senses  of  this  sudden  plunge  into  summer. 

It  had  been  necessary  to  wear  furs  in  Moscow ;  the 
days  were  raw  and  the  nights  cold ;  it  snowed  and  froze 
until  the  streets,  during  the  last  of  my  stay  (until  the 
middle  of  May),  changed  to  a  chaos  of  mud.  Then  one  day 
I  was  taken  by  an  acquaintance  to  the  Kursk  Railway 


16 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


station,  and  we  journeyed  for  a  day  and  night  towards  the 
south.  When  we  arose  the  next  morning  at  five  o’clock 
summer  was  upon  us.  There  was  the  country-house 
surrounded  with  trees  newly  clad  with  foliage.  There 
was  a  fragrance  from  these  poplars  and  birches  as  intox- 
icatingly  strong  as  the  perfume  of  the  plants  in  a  conser¬ 
vatory,  and  far  more  fresh.  There  was  no  grass,  only 
moss,  hut  over  the  moss  a  never  ending  carpet  of 
extremely  fragrant  lilies  of  the  valley.  The  dense,  fresh, 
primeval  forest  extended  along  the  two  rivers  Diesna  and 
Bolva ;  and  the  nightingales  sang  in  rich  chorus,  as  I  had 
never  before  heard  them.  This  was  no  accident,  for  this 
is  the  country  of  nightingales  above  all  others.  It  is 
said  that  in  the  vicinity  of  Kursk  and  Orel  (pro¬ 
nounced  Aryol)  the  nightingale  is  to  be  found  in  the 
greatest  numbers  and  sings  the  best  of  all  places  on  the 
earth. 

To  sum  up  the  characteristics,  this  is  a  land  where 
everything  is  extravagant  and  nothing  temperate.  In 
the  next  place,  just  as  the  conditions  are  extraordinary, 
immense,  so  the  uniformity  is  great,  and  as  the  natural 
uniformity  is  great,  so  is  the  variety  produced  by  the 
seasons  great.  All  is  laid  out  on  a  large  scale,  cities  and 
provincial  towns.  There  is  room  to  spare  everywhere, 
as  in  the  United  States. 


III. 


If  the  stranger  has  now  looked  about  at  all  in  this 
land,  he  will  necessarily  be  inclined  to  reflect  on  the 
condition  of  the  people  who  inhabit  it,  and  will  strive  to 
reach  clear  conclusions  as  to  the  fundamental  elements 
of  their  character. 

The  truth  has  been  expressed  in  many  different  ways, 
especially  in  earlier  times,  that  the  Russians  have  in¬ 
vented  very  little,  have  contributed  nothing,  so  to  speak, 
to  the  development  of  civilization,  but  have  only  appro¬ 
priated  the  culture  of  others.  They  are,  it  is  said,  a 
people  of  imitation,  a  people  without  originality. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  of  all  the  larger  European 
nations  this  is  the  one  which  has  borrowed  the  most  of 
foreign  culture,  and  whose  native  culture  strikes  one 
least.  It  shows  itself  in  something  external,  as  in  this, 
that,  while  a  travelling  Englishman  may  be  detected  at 
the  distance  of  a  hundred  paces,  you  must  look  well 
to  recognize  a  Russian  on  his  travels.  It  is,  moreover, 
scarcely  any  extravagant  exaggeration  to  say,  as  in  the 
first  part  of  the  “  Main  Currents,”  that  a  square  yai’d  of 
the  Roman  Forum  has  more  history  than  the  whole  Rus¬ 
sian  Empire. 

And  yet  the  observation  is  very  superficial  which 
characterizes  the  Russian  people  with  the  word  exotic. 
The  traveller  in  Russia  who  asks  himself  the  question, 
What  is  there  here  original  ?  will  not  fail  to  find  an 
answer  when  he  directs  his  mind  from  the  trivial  and 

17 


18 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


unimportant  to  the  most  fundamental  qualities  which 
he  can  trace. 

He  is,  very  likely,  first  struck  by  the  way  in  which  the 
horses  are  harnessed  to  the  carriages.  In  no  other  place 
is  this  done  as  here  ;  in  no  other  country  are  three  horses 
used  with  one  carriage  in  so  stylish  a  manner.  It  is  no 
slight  or  common  sense  of  beauty  which  prompted  this. 
In  the  next  place,  there  is  a  very  striking  originality  in  all 
kinds  of  manual  labor.  This  is  seen  in  the  patterns  of 
embroidery  (also  well  known  here  from  the  Russian  em¬ 
broidered  handkerchiefs),  in  the  harmony  of  bright  colors 
which  characterize  all  Russian  ornamentation  and  deco¬ 
ration,  from  the  ancient  manuscripts  down  to  the  beauti¬ 
ful  enamel  in  gold  and  silver  of  this  present  day,  and, 
finally,  in  the  style  of  architecture,  which,  although  it  is 
a  composite  of  Byzantine  and  Mongolian,  Hindoo  and 
Persian,  Gothic  and  Renaissance,  still  has  obtained  a 
marked  national  character  as  the  embodiment  of  the 
Russian-Greek  Church. 

In  the  next  place,  this  people  have  an  original  concep¬ 
tion  in  their  civil  relations,  the  so-called  mir,  a  munici¬ 
pality  whose  bond  of  union  is  home  rule  and  common 
ownership  of  the  soil. 

Russia  is  primarily  and  in  its  very  essence  a  patriar¬ 
chal  state,  a  state  where  the  father  has  the  authority 
and  the  children  are  in  a  condition  of  equality  with  one 
another.  As  a  result  of  a  development  ordained  by  fate, 
Russia  has  become  a  bureaucratic  state,  where  official 
power  has  destroyed  all  spontaneous  and  natural  growth 
in  the  relations  of  public  life.  Nevertheless,  the  family, 
the  municipality,  and  the  state  in  Russia  are  three  organ¬ 
isms,  constructed  on  entirely  homogeneous  principles,  but 
moving  in  different  spheres.  The  great  Russian  family 
is  not  restricted  to  parents  and  children ;  it  includes 


COMMON  OWNERSHIP  OF  LAND. 


19 


several  generations  and  many  families.  Married  sons, 
brothers  of  the  father  or  of  the  mother,  have  down  to  a 
very  recent  period  constantly  worked  in  the  same  house 
or  on  the  same  farm,  yielding  obedience  to  the  authority 
of  the  eldest,  and  with  property  in  common.  This  family 
relation  is  now  being  broken  up,  because  in  it  (as  in  the 
state)  the  paternal  authority  has  been  inflated  till  it  has 
become  unnatural  and  oppressive. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  municipality  is  only  the  larger 
family,  as  the  state  is  only  the  union  of  all  the  munici¬ 
palities  into  one  great  family,  whose  father  is  the  Tsar. 
The  Russian  family  has  two  decided  characteristics :  the 
unlimited  authority  of  the  father,  and  the  undivided 
possession  by  the  children.  The  Russian  state,  absolute 
monarchy,  has  developed  the  first;  the  Russian  municipal¬ 
ity,  mir,  the  second.  In  fact,  these  two  characteristics  — 
the  power  of  the  Tsar  and  the  ownership  of  land  in  com¬ 
mon —  are  the  two  fundamental  principles  which  distin¬ 
guish  the  Russian  people  from  all  others.  It  is  very 
true  that  many  other  countries,  Denmark  among  the 
rest,  have  long  known  a  similar  common  ownership  of 
property ;  but  elsewhere  it  has  been  abolished  with  the 
abolition  of  serfdom,  or  with  the  emancipation  from 
villanage ;  here,  on  the  contrary,  it  still  survives.  While 
the  common  family  (or  the  organization  which  may  be 
termed  a  family  partnership)  is  undergoing  dissolution 
since  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  the  municipal  joint 
property  has  not  only  held  its  own  since  then,  but  it  has 
even  increased  at  the  expense  of  private  property.  In 
the  department  of  Moscow,  since  1861,  of  74,480  farms 
only  nineteen  have  abandoned  the  joint  proprietorship ; 
and  at  the  present  time,  in  the  whole  of  Greater  Russia, 
of  all  the  peasant  farm  lands  90-98  per  cent  are  owned 
in  common.  Even  in  White  and  Little  Russia  common 
ownership  has  made  inroads. 


20 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


It  is  natural  that  the  Russians,  underneath  the  social- 
istic  agitations  of  our  time,  should  see  in  their  mir  the 
healthy  germ  of  better  social  relations.  They  generally 
regard  themselves  in  this  particular  as  the  pioneer  or 
prototype  for  Europe. 

Intellectual  originality  among  the  Russians  is,  natu¬ 
rally,  much  less  easily  grasped,  but  it  is  not  on  that 
account  the  less  indisputable.  Intellectually,  the  Rus¬ 
sians  impress  the  stranger  by  their  realism,  their  practical, 
positive  taste  for  the  real,  which  has  made  them  a  great 
people  and  has  won  so  many  victories  in  the  battle  of 
life.  It  seems  to  be  this  quality  which  has  given  the  in¬ 
habitant  of  Great  Russia  superiority  over  all  the  other 
races  of  the  empire.  While  the  Little-Russian  possibly 
surpasses  the  Great-Russian  in  continued  action,  through 
his  vivacity  and  delicacy,  his  sensibility  and  disposition, 
he  lacks  the  sound  common  sense  of  the  other.  This  taste 
for  realism  has  shown  itself  to  be  the  strong  point  of  the 
Great-Russian.  It  is  this  among  other  things  which 
explains  how  it  is  that,  where  a  realistic  tendency  in 
modern  times  has  prevailed  in  French  literature,  and 
books  of  this  intellectual  character  have  been  brought  to 
Russia,  they  have  been  received  there  as  the  representa¬ 
tives  of  something  old  and  well  known.  A  long  time 
before,  the  Russian  authors  had  solved  the  problem  of 
the  novel  in  a  like  manner.  At  the  time  when  France 
was  becoming  the  most  infatuated  with  Romanticism, 
the  whole  Russian  novel  literature  had  already  begun  to 
produce  the  description  of  actual  life,  and  Art  had  begun 
.to  follow  on  the  track  of  Poetry. 

The  result  of  this  realism  is  that  the  Great-Russian 
despises  the  Little-Russian  as  sentimental  and  effeminate, 
and  looks  down  upon  the  Pole  as  on  a  being  weak  and 
unreliable,  or,  on  a  higher  plane,  romantic  and  fantastic. 


RUSSIAN  MYSTICISM  AND  FRANKNESS.  21 


There  is  also  the  strongly  developed  realistic  tendency 
which  has  deprived  the  Russian  of  all  metaphysical 
qualities,  and  led  him,  as  a  rule,  to  take  interest  in  only 
two  groups  of  sciences  —  the  physical  and  social. 

The  form  of  government  in  Russia  is  not  now  of  the 
kind  to  give  free  scope  for  any  sort  of  originality.  And 
while  independent  thought  in  political  affairs  is  not 
allowed  any  outlet,  and  is  almost  equally  debarred  from 
full  and  free  expression  in  literature  on  account  of  the 
censor,  there  is  no  obstacle  to  singularity,  individual  pe¬ 
culiarity,  and  absurdity,  which  not  infrequently  becomes 
merged  into  mysticism,  a  Slavic  peculiarity,  but  one  which 
with  the  Russians  is  wonderfully  united  to  realism. 
Gogol  comes  to  us  a  representative  of  the  past,  and 
Tolstoi  of  the  present  time.  It  is  this  mysticism  which 
is  outwardly  shown  in  the  numerous  sects  which  are 
found  in  Russia.  The  membership  of  the  sects  amounts 
to  fourteen  or  fifteen  millions,  divided  among  some  fifty 
or  sixty  different  moral  and  religious  systems. 

The  trait,  however,  which  struck  me  personally  more 
strongly  than  any  other,  and  one  which  I  mei  with  in  the 
most  developed  and  also,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  most 
typical  individuals,  was  what  they  themselves  called  une 
large  franchise,  a  broad  and  proud  frankness.  No¬ 
where  else  are  men  and  women  occupying  the  most 
advanced  places  in  culture  heard  expressing  themselves 
so  openly  and  without  reserve.  They  not  only  give 
utterance  to  their  ideas  and  thoughts  without  hesitation, 
but  they  not  infrequently  expose  traits  of  their  own 
lives,  traits  which  they  must  see  may  be  judged  differ¬ 
ently,  without  any  fear  of  losing  anything  in  the  opinion 
of  others.  Behind 'this  transparency,  which  especially 
surprises  us  in  the  women,  there  lies :  “  Such  am  I ;  I 
appear  as  I  am  —  too  broadly  and  largely  constituted  to 


9*2 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


be  reserved  and  prudent,  and  too  sure  of  my  position  in 
life  not  to  be  dependent  on  my  own  judgment.”  The 
meaning  of  this  in  social  intercourse  is :  “  This  is  what  I 
am.  Tell  me  what  you  are.  What  is  the  profit  of  this 
reserve !  Life  is  short,  time  is  scantily  measured  out ;  if 
we  are  to  get  anything  out  of  our  intercourse,  we  must 
explain  what  we  are  to  each  other.”  And  behind  this 
frankness  lies  the  emotion  which  works  most  strangely 
of  all  on  one  who  comes  from  the  north,  a  horror  and 
hatred  of  hypocrisy,  and  a  pride  which  shows  itself  in 
carelessness  —  so  unlike  English  stiffness,  Erench  pru¬ 
dence,  German  class  pride,  Danish  nonsense. 

The  basis  of  this  is  the  broadly  constituted  nature, 
without  frivolity,  without  narrowness,  without  bitterness 
—  the  true  basis  of  originality  in  Russia. 

And  this,  which  is  thus  opened  to  inspection  when  this 
natural  disposition  is  examined,  this  is  a  peculiarity  which 
is  unique  among  the  national  peculiarities  of  Europe. 

The  fundamental  inclination,  which  numerous  experi¬ 
ences  disclose  to  the  stranger,  is  :  the  inclination  to  have 
their  swing.  It  is  not  simply  the  inclination  to  extremes. 
But  it  is  this  :  when  a  Russian  has  got  hold  of  a  thought, 
a  fundamental  idea,  a  principle,  a  purpose,  without  re¬ 
gard  to  its  origin,  whether  it  originated  with  himself 
or  was  borrowed  from  European  culture,  he  does  not  rest 
until  he  has  followed  it  out  to  the  last  results.  There¬ 
fore  the  Russians  are  the  most  arbitrary  oppressors  in 
the  world  and  the  most  reckless  liberators,  blindly  ortho¬ 
dox,  following  sectarian  religions  to  self-destruction, 
free-thinking  to  Nihilism,  sedition  to  attempts  at  murder 
and  dynamite  assaults.  If  they  believe  in  the  idea  of 
authority,  they  bow  down  till  the  forehead  touches  the 
earth  before  it  ( chelobitie ) ;  if  they  hate  the  idea  of 
authority,  that  hate  forces  percussion  bombs  into  their 


CAPACITY  OF  APPROPRIATION. 


23 


hands.  They  are  radicals  in  everything,  in  faith  and 
infidelity,  in  love  and  hate,  in  submission  and  rebellion. 

Finally,  there  is  one  more  fundamental  trait  of  the 
Russians,  one  which  seems  most  vigorously  to  combat 
the  idea  of  originality :  the  inclination  to  imitation,  the 
power  of  echoing,  of  reflecting  after  the  Russian  spirit, 
the  capacity  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  strange 
and  to  adapt  the  strange  to  themselves.  It  is  first  and 
foremost  a  capacity  to  understand  and  then  a  disposition 
to  appropriate. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  Germans  possess  a  simi¬ 
lar  quality  of  seizing  upon  everything  foreign,  and  by 
translation  or  penetrating  comprehension  making  it  their 
own.  They  have  this  quality  in  the  highest  degree. 
But  it  is  of  a  different  kind  with  them.  Herder’s  highly 
endowed,  but  ponderous  and  slow  people  understand 
ponderously  and  slowly  national  intellects  :  they  grasped 
Greece,  Calderon,  and  Shakespeare  before  any  of  the  other 
European  nations  ;  but  they  are  not  able,  on  that  account, 
to  become  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  genius  of  the 
foreign  race  as  to  reproduce  it  and  act  in  its  spirit.  The 
French,  who  did  not  appreciate  the  Greeks,  came  far 
nearer  to  them  in  their  works  than  the  Germans,  who 
did  comprehend  them.  The  Russians,  above  all  others, 
have  the  talent  of  grasping  the  manner  of  thought  and 
range  of  ideas  of  other  races,  of  imitating  them  and  of 
dealing  with  them  as  their  own  intellectual  property. 
The  cultivated  Russian  understands  and  always  has 
understood  the  living,  the  new,  the  newest  in  foreign 
countries,  and  does  not  wait  till  it  becomes  cheap  because 
it  is  old,  or  has  gained  currency  by  the  approbation  of 
the  stranger’s  countrymen.  The  Russian  catches  the 
new  thought  on  the  wing.  Their  culture  makes  a  mod¬ 
ern  race,  with  the  keenest  scent  for  everything  modern. 


24 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


It  has  been  often  the  case  in  our  own  time  that  authors 
who  have  met  with  obstacles  or  aversion  in  their  own 
country  have  found  their  first  sanctuary  in  the  Russian 
newspapers  or  from  the  Russian  public.  Who  knows  if 
in  this  respect  Russia  will  not  in  the  future  play  a  role 
similar  to  that  of  Holland  during  the  Renaissance,  when 
it  furnished  a  place  of  refuge  to  those  authors  who  were 
persecuted  at  home  ?  An  omen  of  this  is  the  hero-wor¬ 
ship  which  exists  in  full  bloom  in  Russia  after  having 
been  almost  wholly  lost  in  the  rest  of  Europe. 

This  remarkable  capacity  for  assimilation  is  also  met 
with,  in  matters  of  artistic  handicraft,  among  the  peas¬ 
ants.  The  peasant  readily  takes  to  any  kind  of  work. 
He  can  imitate  anything  he  sees.  He  knows  ten  trades. 
If  a  traveller  somewhere  in  the  country  loses  a  cap  with 
a  peculiar  kind  of  embroidery,  ten  years  later  the  whole 
region  is  reproducing  it.  Another  traveller  forgets  in  a 
corner  a  piece  of  chased  copper  or  enamelled  silver, 
and  this  waif  gives  rise  to  a  new  industry.  Some  of  the 
most  celebrated  producers  of  industrial  art  are  self-made 
men  from  the  peasant  class,  men  who  have  groped  their 
way  to  the  position  they  now  occupy.  Maslianikof, 
who  as  master  potter  has  reached  the  post  of  superin¬ 
tendent  of  the  imperial  porcelain-factory,  was  formerly  a 
peasant,  and  he  has  worked  his  way  uj:>,  without  any 
training  in  the  works,  by  his  own  individual  exertions 
and  conjectures ;  and  Ovtchinnikof,  the  celebrated  gold¬ 
smith  of  Moscow,  whose  transparent  enamel  was  so  much 
admired  at  the  exhibition  in  Copenhagen,  was  also  born 
a  peasant,  and  is  indebted  to  nothing  but  his  natural 
talents.  He  has  succeeded,  among  other  things,  in  re¬ 
producing  the  old  Byzantine  art  of  using  cloisonne- 
enamel  to  represent  the  human  countenance,  and  in 
getting  on  the  track  of  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  Japanese 


FUNDAMENTAL  TRAITS. 


25 


in  the  use  of  a  fine  red  enamel  with  inlaid  foliage  of 
silver,  where  the  shadows  of  the  leaves  are  brought  out 
by  a  device  in  the  process  of  firing. 

In  this  popular  intelligence,  exactly  the  opposite  of 
the  English,  the  capacity  for  fructification,  intellectual 
suppleness,  is  the  predominating  talent. 

It  can  easily  be  understood  how  a  national  character 
of  this  kind  should  be  developed  in  this  land  above 
all  others.  We  see  before  us  an  enormously  large  but 
scantily  populated  country,  very  backward  in  education, 
and  which  it  is  necessary  at  once  to  reclaim  by  new 
settlements  and  to  elevate  by  European  culture,  —  a  land 
with  broad,  unoccupied  territory,  as  in  the  United  States, 
and  at  the  same  time  governed  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  Turkey. 

It  is  a  great  winter-land,  and  the  first  effect  of  the  cold 
is  to  produce  inertia.  That  is  possibly  the  cause  of  the 
national  inclination  to  indolence,  which  has  obtained  its 
typical  expression  in  Goncharbf’s  novel  “  Oblomof,” 
famous  both  in  and  out  of  Russia,  and  a  monumental 
picture  of  Russian  sluggishness.  Oblomof  is  a  character 
so  slack,  so  tired,  so  indolent,  so  disinclined  to  activity, 
that  he  loses  his  dignity,  his  self-respect,  his  sweetheart 
and  his  fortune,  from  pure,  insurmountable  indiffer¬ 
ence. 

The  want  of  sufficiently  nutritious  food  makes  the 
blood  thin,  the  requirements  for  protection  against  the 
cold  make  the  temperament  nervous.  Passivity  becomes 
a  fundamental  trait,  which  is  sharply  and  clearly  mani¬ 
fested  in  the  popular  amusements.  While  the  Spaniard 
takes  his  pleasures  in  bull-fights,  either  as  participant  or 
spectator ;  while  the  Englishman  boxes  and  rows,  the 
Frenchman  fights,  the  Pole  dances, — the  Russian  finds  no 
happiness  in  any  kind  of  sport.  His  delight  is  to  heal 


26 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


a  hand-organ  or  harmonica  play,  to  swing  and  to  ride  on 
the  gravitating  railway  of  which  he  is  the  inventor. 

In  every  Russian  traktir,  where  the  common  or  better 
class  of  people  assemble  to  enjoy  the  national  food  and 
to  drink  tea,  there  is  found  a  great  automatic  organ, 
sometimes  reaching  to  the  ceiling ;  and  the  coming  guest 
orders  the  waltz  to  suit  his  taste,  never  tired  of  hearing 
a  favorite  melody.  The  swing,  with  its  rocking  ease,  is 
an  indispensable  accompaniment  of  every  Russian  festiv¬ 
ity.  But  the  gravitating  railway,  with  its  passive  voyage 
into  the  unknown,  is  the  most  characteristic  amusement 
for  the  Russian  temperament.  Without  any  exertion, 
without  moving  a  limb,  the  participant  has  the  complete 
sensation  of  having  his  full  swing. 

Passivity  shows  itself,  in  public  and  private  life,  in 
the  submission  to  the  powers  that  be.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  sluggishness  has  its  strength  in  passive  resistance. 
Absolutism  not  only  cows,  but  it  hardens.  This  stolidity 
becomes  the  popular  ideal.  It  is  not  the  one  who  takes 
the  lead,  —  the  daring,  the  defiant,  —  who  is  admired ; 
but  the  one  who,  without  complaint,  knows  how  to  en¬ 
dure,  to  suffer,  and  to  die.  This  characteristic  may  be 
seen  more  at  large  in  Dostoyevski’s  “Recollections  of 
a  Dead  House  in  Siberia,”  in  which,  according  to  the 
popular  view,  he  who  endures  the  lash  and  the  knout 
without  asking  for  mercy  is  the  object  of  veneration, — 
such  as,  among  other  nations,  is  bestowed  on  the  hero  or 
conqueror  for  dealing  blows. 

This  explains  the  fact  that,  although  the  Russians  are 
a  brave  people,  and  a  remarkably  steadfast  people  in 
war,  they  are  the  most  peaceful  and  unwarlike  nation  in 
the  world.  The  Russian  officers  have  little  class  feeling. 
They  never,  like  the  Prussians,  form  a  military  caste, 
distinct  from  the  people,  They  have  no  morgue,  no 


INDIFFERENCE  TO  DEATH. 


27 


cruel  haughtiness.  While  the  German  officer,  even  when 
his  education  is  the  best,  feels  himself  to  be  a  sort  of 
priest,  —  a  military  sacerdos,  —  the  Russian  officer,  even 
when  he  is  rude,  is,  according  to  his  own  conception,  a 
mortal  like  others. 

In  the  next  place,  it  seems  as  if  the  hard  contest  with 
the  harsh  climate,  which  at  the  same  time  has  made  the 
people  hardy  and  inactive,  has  given  them  the  apparently 
contradictory  qualities,  —  good  nature  and  gruffness. 

The  popular  temper  seems  to  be  at  once  unfeeling  and 
kindly.  There  is  a  Russian  indifference  to  their  own 
sufferings,  and  a  Russian  sympathy  for  the  sufferings 
of  others,  to  which  this  indifference  contributes. 

The  Russian  peasant,  often  shows  himself  indifferent 
to  death.  He  generally  has  no  special  fear  of  death,  and 
he  is  indifferent  as  to  inflicting  death  on  others,  espe¬ 
cially  if  it  is  a  question  of  children  or  old  people.  Hor¬ 
rible  murders  are  thus  sometimes  perpetrated  among  the 
peasants,  without  passion  or  malice.  Compare,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  the  child-murder  in  Tolstoi’s  instructive  drama, 
“  The  Power  of  Darkness.” 

Still  more  striking  is  the  trait,  which  is  here  stated 
from  a  verbal  account,  given  by  a  Russian  general. 

The  following  incident  took  place  in  the  time  of  the 
Crimean  War :  A  severely  wounded  soldier  was  dragging 
himself  along  with  difficulty,  and  in  great  pain,  after  his 
battalion.  His  wound  was  so  severe  that  there  seemed 
to  be  no  hope  of  his  recovery.  His  comrades  then  said 
to  him,  with  the  deepest  sympathy:  “You  are  suffering 
too  much,  you  will  soon  die.  Do  you  want  us  to  end 
your  pain  ?  Shall  we  bury  you  ?  ”  —  “I  wish  you 
would,”  answered  the  unhappy  soldier.  So  they  set  to 
work  and  dug  a  grave.  He  laid  himself  down  in  it,  and 
the  others  buried  him  alive  —  out  of  pity. 


28 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


When  the  general,  who  did  not  hear  of  it  till  it  was 
all  over,  afterwards  said  to  the  soldiers :  “  He  must 
have  suffered  terribly,”  they  answered  :  “  Oh,  no ! 

(Nifchevo  /)  we  stamped  the  earth  down  hard  with  our 
feet.” 

This  mingling  of  gentleness  and  ferocity  is  remarkable. 
It  is  typical  of  the  Russian  common  people.  What  is 
otherwise  inexplicable  becomes  clear  when  we  see  the 
utter  darkness  of  the  ignorance  in  which  the  soul  of  the 
poor  Russian  peasant  vegetates. 

In  all  probability,  also,  the  strife  with  the  natural  con¬ 
ditions  has  developed  the  practical  qualities  with  the 
Great-Russian,  —  the  taste  for  that  which  is  available 
and  useful  in  handiwork.  In  this  aspect,  it  is  sugges¬ 
tive  that  the  most  celebrated  and  most  typical  Russian, 
Peter  the  Great,  when  he  wanted  to  reform  his  country, 
felt  himself  drawn  to  the  mechanical  inventions  above 
everything  else.  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu,  in  his  charac¬ 
teristics  of  that  monarch,  has  pertinently  made  prominent 
that,  on  his  journeys,  he  did  not  visit  the  universities,  but 
the  workshops  and  the  dock-yards ;  that  he  brought  back 
to  Russia  anatomy,  surgery,  the  art  of  the  apothecary, 
mechanics,  ship-building,  engineering,  as  well  as  a  whole 
army  of  workmen  and  master  mechanics,  —  but  that  there 
were  no  learned  men  or  thinkers  in  his  train.  Witli  his 
own  hands  he  essayed  the  whole  range  of  manual  labor : 
entered  the  army  as  a  drummer,  served  in  the  navy  as  a 
pilot,  knew  how  to  build  boats,  forge  iron,  and  engrave. 
In  the  armory  in  the  palace  of  the  Kremlin,  in  Moscow, 
there  is  shown  a  horseshoe  which  he  hammered  out  on 
the  anvil,  and  a  bowl  which  he  modelled.  The  genial 
muzhik  shines  out  through  this  ruler  as  through  so 
many  a  gifted  Russian  nobleman. 

As  the  severity  of  the  climate  is  the  cause  of  certain 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  MIR. 


29 


national  qualities,  already  spoken  of,  so  it  seems  to  be 
the  connecting  link  between  the  extraordinary  uniformity 
of  nature  and  the  melancholy  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
the  Eussian  disposition.  The  Eussian  is  melancholy,  — 
yet  not  splenetic  in  solitude,  like  the  Englishman.  It  is 
a  melancholy  pervading  the  community.  It  is  this  which 
easily  glides  into  sectarian  mysticism. 

The  union  of  the  natural  and  historical  conditions  has 
produced  the  Eussian  mir.  Call  to  mind  one  or  another 
small  country  town,  settled  by  Eussian  immigrants,  in 
the  vicinity  of  one  of  the  remote  cities  in  the  north,  on 
the  Volga,  only  a  century  or  two  ago.  Before  it  extend 
the  boundless  steppes,  from  which  hordes  of  wild  Ta¬ 
tars,  the  so-called  Nogai,  are  constantly  threatening ; 
the  forests  round  about  are  full  of  wild  beasts  and  of 
subjugated  Tatar  tribes,  the  so-called  Cheremissians, 
who  are  constantly  rising  in  rebellion.  An  impassable 
swamp  separates  the  country  town  from  the  castle  of  the 
Tsar,  which  in  time  of  danger  is  the  only  place  of  refuge 
of  the  inhabitants.  In  winter,  the  swamp  is  frozen  over ; 
the  cold  reaches  the  neighborhood  of  — 60°  Fahr.,  and 
the  blasts  from  Siberia  pile  up  mountains  of  snow, 
which  almost  bury  the  whole  town.  Is  it  not  evident 
that  in  such  circumstances  there  is  no  use  for  the  saying, 
“  My  house  is  my  castle  ”  ?  Such  an  idea  would  be 
madness.  Here,  it  is  not  only  unsuited  to  the  sur¬ 
roundings,  but  impossible,  to  live  alone,  each  family  and 
each  farm  by  itself.  Each  one  daily  needs  the  help  of 
his  neighbors  for  protection  against  the  Tatars,  for  de¬ 
fence  against  the  wild  beasts,  for  the  clearing  of  the 
woodland,  and  for  breaking  up  the  soil.  The  first  and 
most  important  thing  is  to  take  care  not  to  starve  to 
death,  and  to  preserve  their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of 
those  dearest  to  them.  Bread  can  nowhere  be  bought, 


30 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


and  to  keep  the  road  open  to  the  castle  requires  the 
united  aid  of  all.1 

When  every  country  town  was  composed,  as  a  rule,  of 
only  a  few  farms,  it  was  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
have  as  strong  a  league  as  possible  between  these  towns. 
And  thus  it  came  about  that  all  the  thoughts  of  the 
peasant  were  concentrated  on  giving  to  this  league, — 
the  mir,  —  his  world,  his  true  fatherland,  as  perfect  an 
internal  structure  as  possible.  Necessity  taught  him 
to  unite  with  his  equals,  and  to  manage  his  own  affairs 
in  union  with  them. 

Russia,  as  is  well  known,  has  been  a  constantly  grow¬ 
ing  empire  since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great.  Since 
then,  it  has  annexed  annually,  on  an  average,  a  territory 
as  large  as  Denmark.  While  its  western  boundaries  in 
our  time  cannot  be  extended  or  are  even  insecure,  —  for 
in  a  great  war  neither  the  Baltic  provinces  nor  Poland 
could  be  depended  on,  —  its  Asiatic  boundary  is  elastic, 
and  is  constantly  moving  towards  the  east  and  south. 
The  significant  condition  of  things  is  here  manifested, 
that  such  an  immense  empire  is  continually  growing 
larger,  and,  impossible  as  it  may  seem,  all  the  new  races 
are  immediately  assimilated :  the  Russian  race  still  main¬ 
tains  its  supremacy  and  moves  on  everywhere,  however 
far  the  boundaries  are  extended. 

It  seems  as  if  the  natural  conditions  of  empire  had 
been  a  controlling  force  in  this  direction.  The  broad 
endless  plains  have  from  an  early  time  awakened  a 
migratory  passion  among  the  peasants.  They  never 
emigrate  to  North  America,  like  the  peasants  of  other 
countries ;  they  go  to  new  places  in  the  Russian  Empire. 
The  Russian  peasant  has  always  been  given  to  roving. 
He  has  been  accustomed  to  make  a  day’s  journey  to 
1  Tikhomirof  :  La  Russie  politique  et  sociale,  p.  100. 


INCLINATION  TO  110 AM. 


31 


fairs,  and  to  pass  weeks  and  months  in  a  pilgrimage  to 
Kief ;  nay,  even  to  this  day  the  Russian  peasants  in 
crowds  make  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem.  For  this  reason 
they  are  exceedingly  well  fitted  for  colonizing  a  new 
country.  Although  they  are  bound  to  Russia,  they  do 
not  feel  at  all  bound  to  their  homesteads.  Nature  is,  so 
to  speak,  uniform,  wherever  they  go.  They  can  wander 
for  weeks  together  over  the  steppes  without  seeing  any 
special  change.  They  can  build  new  houses  {izbas)  for 
themselves  in  a  few  days  anywhere.  For,  from  a  fear 
of  fire,  which  in  Russia,  on  account  of  the  droughts  and 
the  construction  of  the  houses,  is  more  frequent  than  in 
other  countries,  the  peasant  never  ornaments  his  izba. 
The  new  house  contains  everything  which  was  contained 
in  the  old.  He  misses  nothing  in  it.  The  new  soil 
which  he  is  cultivating  brings  forth  just  as  good  a  har¬ 
vest  as  the  old.  And  by  his  emigration  he  has  satisfied 
his  desire  for  adventure,  for  new  experiences,  and  for 
seeing  new  faces. 

There  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  steppes,  that  they 
continually  invite  one  to  go  on  and  on.  Level  as  the 
sea  never  is,  it  evokes  limitless  reveries,  passion  for 
wandering  about,  thirst  for  novelty,  and  the  inclination 
to  let  every  idea  be  pursued  to  its  never-reached  end. 

The  uniformity  of  the  country  gives  to  the  Russian 
the  roaming  propensity,  the  contrasts  of  the  climate 
make  a  certain  pliability  necessary  in  the  face  of  the 
great  and  sudden  changes,  which  may  be  the  basis  of 
the  Russian  flexibility  in  intellectual  matters,  and  is 
perhaps  connected  with  the  spasmodic  in  Russian  man¬ 
ners  and  mode  of  life. 

It  is  the  suppleness  in  the  Russian’s  nature  which 
makes  him  so  susceptible  to  foreign  impressions.  The 
intellectual  transition  to  the  Russian  talent  for  imita- 


32 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


tion,  and  the  ability  to  appropriate  everything  which  is 
foreign,  flows  from  this  flexibility.  Looking  at  it  in  this 
connection  (that  is,  from  the  standpoint  of  its  cause) 
this  quality  of  comprehension  and  assimilation,  it  seems 
to  me,  has  its  character  of  originality.  Looking  at  it 
abstractly,  the  lack  of  originality  becomes  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  a  new  originality  in  the  culture  of  Europe. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  this  Russia  has  always  been 
the  pupil  of  the  whole  world.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
this  Russian  people  is  indebted  to  each  and  all  the  na¬ 
tions  of  Europe.  The  foundations  of  its  empire  were 
laid  by  Scandinavian  chiefs ;  almost  all  the  names  of  the 
Yarings  are  Norse,  and  so  are  the  “Russian”  names  of 
the  Dnieper  Falls  preserved  by  Constantine  Porphyrogen- 
etes ;  even  the  name  Rus  is  in  all  probability  a  Norse  word, 
even  if  other  explanations  are  not  absolutely  excluded.1 
Modern  Russian  civilization  exhibits  strong  proofs  of  the 
Byzantine  and  Tatar  influences.  The  Russians  as  a  nar 
tion  have  been  to  school  to  the  Poles,  then  to  the  Ger¬ 
mans  and  Dutch,  and  then  to  the  French.  Finally,  they 
have  received  impulses  from  the  whole  of  West-Europe, 
and  their  belles-lettres  have  been  influenced  by  the  whole 
of  civilized  Europe.  All  this  cannot  be  denied,  and  it  is 
equally  true  that  when  we  stand  in  St.  Petersburg  and 
look  at  this  Winter  Palace,  built  from  designs  by  the 
Italian  Rastrelli,  and  the  beautiful  equestrian  statue, 
the  work  of  the  Frenchman  Falconet,  or  when,  in  Mos¬ 
cow,  you  gaze  upon  the  walls  and  towers  of  the  Kremlin, 
built  by  Lombardian  and  Venetian  architects,  or  when, 
finally,  in  front  even  of  Vasili  Blazhemnoi,  the  model 
of  all  time-honored  Byzantine  Muscovite  churches,  we 

1  See  William  Thomsen  :  “  The  Relations  between  Ancient  Russia 
and  Scandinavia,  and  the  Origin  of  the  Russian  State.”  Compare 
Elise'e  Re'clus,  cited  before,  tome  v.  301, 


THE  BROADLY  CONSTITUTED  NATURE.  33 


learn  that  it  also,  with  its  domes,  which  are  like  bulbs 
and  pine-apples,  dentated  and  peeled  fruits  and  buds,  with 
its  towers  in  all  forms  and  hues,  was  built  by  Italian 
artists  of  the  Renaissance,  —  then  we  unquestionably 
wonder  what  the  Russians  themselves  have  done.  But 
it  will  also  be  noted  that  the  Russians  have  compelled 
the  foreigner  to  work  in  their  spirit  or  adopt  and  develop 
the  peculiar  Russian  style. 

At  the  present  time,  the  unlimited  capacity  of  receiv¬ 
ing  that  which  is  foreign  means  scarcely  anything  else 
than  the  intensified  ability  to  fructify.  It  is  this  which, 
among  other  things,  becomes  ardor,  enthusiasm,  deific^ 
tion  of  genius,  hero-worship. 

All  springs  from  the  broadly  constituted  nature  (shiro- 
kaya  natura).  The  Russians  have  an  expression,  Cherno- 
ziom  —  the  black  earth,  mould.  They  mean  by  it  the 
broad  and  deep  belt  of  fertile  soil,  humus,  which  extends 
from  Podolia  to  Kazan  and  even  across  Ural  into  Sibe¬ 
ria.  The  wonderful  fertility  of  this  soil  is  ascribed  to 
the  slow  decay  of  the  grass  of  the  steppes,  which  has 
been  going  on  for  centuries. 

The  richest  and  broadest  Russian  natures  remind  us 
of  this  belt  of  rich  soil.  Even  the  circumstance  that  the 
Russian  nature  has  been  lying  fallow  for  hundreds  of 
years  increases  its  wealth. 

You  occasionally  meet  a  man  or  woman  who  exactly 
embodies  this  Russian  soil  —  a  nature  which  is  open, 
rich,  luxurious,  receptive,  warm  without  glow  or  heat, 
but  which  gives  the  impression  of  inexhaustible  exuber¬ 
ance. 

A  foreigner  who  had  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  in 
the  Polytechnic  Museum  in  Moscow,  where  the  univer¬ 
sity  for  women  founded  by  Professor  Guerrier  and  his 
colleague  was  situated  until  it  was  recently  closed, 


34 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


related  the  following  little  trait  of  Muscovite  enthusiasm  : 
“  At  the  time  when  the  university  for  women  was  in  exist¬ 
ence,  I  went,  one  forenoon,  into  the  hall  where  I  had 
lectured  the  evening  before.  I  was  going  to  have  some 
changes  made  in  the  arrangement  of  the  chairs.  I  was 
sitting  alone  in  the  hall,  and  waiting,  when  a  door  was 
half  opened  and  a  young  girl  looked  in  and  withdrew 
smiling.  A  few  moments  later  a  hundred  young  girls 
came  quickly  in  through  the  door,  all  in  black  woollen 
dresses,  formed  a  circle  around  me,  and  began  to  clap 
their  hands.  Then  one  of  them,  the  daughter  of  a  cele¬ 
brated  deceased  poet,  said  a  few  words  to  me,  and  they 
clapped  again.  I  believe  it  is  the  pleasantest  impression 
of  my  journey.” 

Every  one  who  knows  how  to  see  will  discover  similar 
little  traits  of  surprising  warmth  and  simplicity,  during  a 
trip  in  Russia.  It  is,  possibly,  this  receptiveness,  this 
prodigality  of  nature,  this  inexhaustible  richness  of  the 
material  life,  which  makes  the  greatest  attraction  of 
Russia,  and  which  betokens  its  future  more  decided 
originality. 

Black  land,  fertile  land,  new  land,  grain-land,  —  that 
is  its  constitution.  The  broadly  constituted,  open,  rich, 
warm  nature,  —  that  is  Russia’s.  And  when  you  are  turn¬ 
ing  over  these  qualities :  the  unlimited  extended,  that 
which  fills  the  mind  with  melancholy  and  hope,  the  im¬ 
penetrable,  darkly  mysterious,  the  womb  of  new  realities 
and  new  mysticism,  all  these  which  are  Russia’s,  —  then 
it  strikes  one  that  they  suit  the  future  almost  as  well, 
and  the  question  presses  itself  upon  us  whether,  when 
we  are  striving  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  this  land,  we 
are  not  gazing  into  the  very  future  of  Europe. 


IV. 


As  may  be  imagined,  the  foreigner  has  little  chance  to 
see  the  real  Russian  people  in  motion  in  the  open  air. 
All  public  life,  meetings,  conferences,  unions,  are  forbid¬ 
den  —  nay,  impossible. 

Still  the  traveller  who  is  in  Russia  at  the  right  season 
can  get  a  distinct  impression  of  the  character  of  the  masses. 

In  St.  Petersburg,  Easter  is  the  gayest  season  for  the 
common  people.  In  the  lai’gest  open  place,  the  Field  of 
Mars,  where  the  soldiers  are  drilled  at  Easter,  four  or 
live  large  theatres  of  unpainted  wood  are  erected,  side 
by  side,  and  in  these  theatres  plays  are  acted,  with  short 
intervals  between,  from  morning  till  night.  In  the  vicin¬ 
ity  of  the  buildings  there  was  a  large,  permanent  market, 
and,  especially  on  holidays,  a  great  crush  of  spectators 
and  purchasers.  The  whole  goes  under  the  name  bala- 
gani. 

The  principal  amusement  of  the  poorer  people,  who 
have  not  the  means  of  paying  the  cheap  admission  fee  to 
the  theatres,  is  this :  On  the  open  balcony  which  encir¬ 
cles  the  theatre  walks  from  side  to  side  a  youth,  dressed 
like  an  old  man,  with  an  enormous  wig  of  long  white 
hair  and  a  long  white  beard,  —  who,  sitting  down,  with 
his  legs  hanging  from  the  scaffolding,  collects  a  crowd. 
He  is  called  Stdrik  (the  old  man).  What  he  says  is  the 
most  childish  and  harmless  nonsense,  —  “  If  I  had  plenty 
of  money  I  would  eat  this  and  that  for  breakfast,  so  and 
so  much  for  dinner,”  etc.  [absurd  quantities],  —  and  they 

35 


Jf 


36 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


laugh.  Or,  “You,  down  there,  don’t  forget  to  take  off 
your  boots  when  you  go  to  bed  at  night,”  —  and  more 
nonsense  of  equal  value.  He  speaks  just  as  we  do  to 
children  of  six  or  seven  years,  when  we  want  to  make 
them  laugh. 

We  go  inside  and  see  a  real  play.  At  the  best  theatre, 
Suvorof  is  given,  a  national  play  in  three  acts.  It  is  now 
two  o’clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  piece  has  already 
been  played  four  times  since  nine  o’clock  in  the  morn¬ 
ing.  It  takes  about  an  hour.  The  auditorium  is  as 
simple  as  possible  —  a  shed ;  the  seats  are  unplaned, 
wooden  benches,  like  those  used  at  the  Passion  play  in 
the  Tyrol.  The  audience  is  made  up  of  very  simple 
people :  servants,  peasant  men  and  women  from  the 
vicinity;  petty  tradesmen  and  their  wives,  from  the 
suburbs.  They  wait  in  silence,  Russian  silence,  till 
the  curtain  rises. 

Suvorof  is  the  popular  national  hero  of  Russia.  A 
short  distance  from  the  theatre  stands  a  bad  academical 
statue  of  him,  in  ancient  Roman  costume,  with  bare  legs, 
which  resembles  almost  anything,  only  not  at  all,  exter¬ 
nally,  a  careless  Russian  general.  Thus  the  actor,  hoarse 
as  he  is,  has  more  of  the  real  Suvorof  than  the  statue. 
This  great  man  was,  in  reality,  a  genuine  Russian  eccen¬ 
tricity,  undoubtedly  the  only  genius  among  the  generals 
of  Russia.  While  Kutuzof,  the  loiterer,  whom  Tolstoi, 
from  philosophic-religious  reasons,  has  glorified  and 
idealized  in  “War  and  Peace,”  was  a  nullity,  who  appro¬ 
priated  Barclay  de  Tolly’s  plan  of  the  campaign,  and  for 
whom  circumstances  conquered,  Suvorof  was  a  real  mili¬ 
tary  genius,  irresistible  even  at  the  head  of  only  a  mere 
handful  of  men.  His  crossing  the  Alps  from  Italy  to 
Switzerland  was  undertaken  under  greater  difficulties 
than  either  that  of  Hannibal  or  of  Bonaparte. 


A  POPULAR  DRAMA. 


37 


Very  significantly  he  is  represented  in  the  play  ex¬ 
clusively  from  national  patriarchal  aspects.  He  is  glori¬ 
fied  in  the  Russian  spirit  on  account  of  his  fatherly 
disposition,  and  not  for  his  courage  or  his  victories. 
And  —  suggestive  enough  in  regard  to  the  Russian  taste 
—  in  this  piece  about  a  war  hero  there  is  no  burning 
of  powder,  no  shooting.  No,  the  common  man  here  sees 
with  surprise  and  pride  Suvorof  clad  in  an  old,  worn- 
out  uniform,  like  a  common  soldier,  even  carrying  his 
baggage  in  a  bag  on  his  back,  —  living  with  the  soldier, 
and  eating  as  he  does  the  same  food,  a  father  to  all. 

There  is  a  well  known  anecdote  of  Suvorof,  that  when 
he  awoke  in  the  morning  —  and  he  was  generally  the 
first  —  he  used  to  crow  like  a  cock  to  awaken  his  asso¬ 
ciates.  As  General  Cock-a-doodle-do  he  has  been  fa¬ 
mous  throughout  the  whole  of  Russia.  In  the  play  this 
characteristic  is  abused  to  such  a  degree  that  the  hero 
shouts  his  Cock-a-doodle-do  thirty  times,  or  speaks  of  its 
use  on  earlier  occasions.  And  the  screech  is  every  time 
followed  by  the  exultation  of  the  audience.  So  also 
are  the  scenes  in  which  he  declares  to  the  common 
soldier  that  he  is  as  good  as  a  general  when  he  does  his 
duty,  and  offers  him  his  hand,  —  a  scene  where  he  sends 
away  the  decorated  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce,  who  is 
astonished  at  the  sight  of  his  simple  barracks,  —  scenes 
where  he  comforts  and  assists  his  subordinates,  jokes 
with  them,  and  exacts  the  same  things  from  himself  as 
from  them.  When  a  play  like  this  is  compared  with 
the  national  plays  of  other  countries,  about  the  military 
heroes  of  general  reputation,  it  strikes  one  that  invari¬ 
ably,  in  the  latter,  dash  is  the  quality  which  is  illumi¬ 
nated  with  Bengal  lights,  while  in  the  former  it  is  patri¬ 
archal  simplicity,  the  paternal  relation  of  the  leader  of 
the  army  to  the  soldier,  that  is  emphasized. 


38 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  same  patriarchal  trait  appeared  in  another  sight 
of  the  Easter  festival,  in  the  open  streets.  Young  girls 
of  the  upper  classes  of  the  Imperial  Girls’  School  were 
driven  in  a  long  procession  through  the  streets  in  the 
imperial  carriages.  The  pleasure  for  them  was  only 
that  of  being  allowed  to  take  a  drive  in  a  stylish  court 
carriage,  with  coachman  and  footman  in  the  imperial  liv¬ 
ery  ;  for  there  was  nothing  special  to  be  seen. 

The  theory  of  this  is  that  the  Tsar  stands  in  a  soi  t  of 
higher  paternal  relation  to  all  these  children.  When  he 
once  a  year  visits  one  of  these  schools,  —  to  which  only 
the  children  of  the  nobility  are  admitted,  —  it  is  a  cus¬ 
tom  that,  as  a  sign  of  his  favor,  he  drops  his  pocket- 
handkerchief,  and  the  girls  all  scramble  for  it,  and  it  is 
torn  in  pieces,  so  that  each  one  can  get  a  fragment.  He 
takes  the  most  brilliant  girl  to  the  table,  and  tastes  of 
the  food  of  the  institution.  It  is  valued  as  the  highest 
distinction  when  he  gives  one  of  the  girls  his  plate  with 
what  is  left  upon  it.  It  is  the  custom  and  usage  for  her 
to  swallow  it  with  delight  shown  in  all  her  features. 
Great  was  the  stupefaction  of  Alexander  the  Second 
when  a  young  girl,  a  Pole,  —  from  whose  own  mouth  I 
had  the  story,  —  whom  the  Tsar  had  taken  to  the  table, 
as  the  most  distinguished  scholar  of  the  institute,  and  to 
whom  he  shoved  what  was  left  of  roast  meat  and  pota¬ 
toes,  —  nodded  to  a  servant,  and  calmly  gave  him  the 
Tsar’s  plate  to  take  away. 

The  Tsar  has  always  stood  in  the  position  of  their  com¬ 
mon  father  to  the  people  of  the  lower  ranks,  although 
the  foundations  of  this  feeling  have  of  late  been  some¬ 
what  shaken.  At  the  same  time,  as  the  present  govern¬ 
ment  in  Eussia  has  placed  itself  upon  a  war  footing 
towards  the  advanced  classes  of  the  people  by  the  very 
act  of  putting  the  greatest  impediments  in  the  way  of 


MUSIC  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


39 


the  passion  for  learning  and  travel,  so  it  has  foolishly 
decided  to  forbid  the  holding  the  celebration  of  the 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  abolition  of  serfdom. 
The  now  emancipated  serfs  consequently  think  it  proper 
to  infer  that  those  who  are  in  the  highest  places  repent 
of  what  was  done. 

In  the  cities,  the  Russian  common  people  are  found  in 
the  genuine  Russian  tea-houses,  where  they  have  the 
melodies  ground  out  for  them  m  the  organs,  and  enjoy 
the  pleasure  of  having  music  at  tea.  There  also  the 
workman  or  the  peasant  is  generally  to  be  seen  on  his 
Friday,  or  when  he  has  got  a  little  too  much  in  his  head, 
with  his  harmonica  in  his  hand,  that  instrument  which 
demands  so  little  skill  and  has  superseded  the  balalaika 
of  earlier  times.  I  shall  never  forget  a  slightly  intoxi¬ 
cated  young  workman  in  Smolensk,  who  was  reeling 
along  happy  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  working  away 
on  his  accordion  while  the  inhabitants  from  all  the  street 
doors  accompanied  his  wanderings  with  looks  and  smiles. 
Seeing  him  suggested  the  role  the  accordion  plays  in 
Tolstoi’s  “Power  of  Darkness.”  We  cannot  help  com¬ 
paring  mentally  the  gay  tramp  of  young  men  through 
the  streets  of  Rome,  keeping  step  to  the  melody  of  the 
guitar,  or  the  artistic  four-part  songs  of  the  Germans. 
Here  is  delight  in  music  which  is  elementary  and  only 
half  developed.  Gentleness  and  naivete  in  this  popular 
pleasure  are  united  with  rudeness  and  stupid  melancholy. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Moscow,  on  the  first  of  May  (Russian 
style)  there  was  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a  celebrated 
national  festival,  which  annually  takes  place  in  Sakol- 
niki  Park.  It  is  a  wood  of  tall  spruces,  traversed  by 
many  broad  carriage-roads.  From  the  grand  avenue 
radiate  seven  principal  roads,  which  are  mutually  united 
by  cross-roads.  There  are  also  smaller  roads  and  paths, 


40 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


which  lead  to  numerous  villas  in  the  Russian  Swiss 
style. 

Even  the  promenade  on  the  first  of  May,  which  was 
meant  as  a  sort  of  Corso,  and  for  which  it  was  necessary 
to  engage  your  carriage  days  before  if  you  would  have 
a  suitable  conveyance,  by  a  genuine  Russian  arrangement 
lost  its  whole  Corso  character.  All  of  these  numerous 
roads,  for  the  whole  distance  from  the  city,  were  guarded 
by  Cossacks  and  gensdarmes  on  horseback,  who  were 
stationed  by  the  side  of  the  road,  about  twenty  yards 
apart,  so  that  there  should  be  no  riot,  and  for  the  sake  of 
good  order  it  was  decided  at  the  last  moment  that  the 
lines  of  carriages  should  not  cross  each  other  in  the 
park,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  there  was  room 
enough.  Thus,  instead  of  being  able  to  enjoy  the  usually 
varied  scenes  of  a  Corso,  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen 
except  the  back  of  the  driver,  the  tails  of  the  horses,  — 
and  your  lady’s  face,  if  you  were  fortunate  enough  to 
have  one  with  you. 

In  the  park,  on  the  great  lawns,  the  common  people 
were  collected  in  great  swarms.  But  neither  song  nor 
music  was  to  be  heard,  nor  a  single  shout  or  noise  of 
any  kind.  The  people  amused  themselves  in  perfect 
silence.  Here  were  gravitating  railways,  which  afford 
a  pleasure  very  much  like  that  of  the  toboggan  slide  at 
night :  the  combination  of  silence  and  furious  speed 
which  answers  for  the  enthusiastic  phase  of  the  national 
character,  and  to  the  Russian  favorite  word,  which  is  the 
peculiar  characteristic  device  of  the  passionate  Russian 
woman,  —  Avos,  “Fire  away,”  the  French  vogue  la  galere. 
In  the  next  place,  the  second,  also  characteristic  popular 
amusement,  which  corresponds  with  the  lymphatic  tem¬ 
perament  of  the  nation,  was  supplied  to  the  common 
people  in  constantly  used  swings  of  all  kinds.  At  the 


MUSEUMS  AND  MEMORIALS. 


41 


same  time  the  humor  with  which  we  in  Denmark  amuse 
ourselves  in  the  parks  on  a  spring  day,  was  wanting.  The 
lines  between  the  different  classes  of  society,  also,  are 
nowhere  with  us,  outside  of  the  metropolis,  so  sharply 
drawn  as  here. 

While  in  cities  like  London,  Paris,  and  Berlin  the 
museums  and  other  places  of  education  are  constantly 
filled  by  the  common  people,  seeking  instruction  suited 
to  their  capacity,  and  for  whom,  even  when  they  possess 
only  the  most  moderate  abilities,  the  use  of  such  places 
has  been  made  easy,  nothing  whatever  corresponding  to 
it  is  to  be  found  in  Russia.  The  Hermitage  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg,  with  its  large  and  valuable  collection  of  objects  of 
art,  is  commonly  inaccessible  and  little  visited.  The 
museums  in  Moscow  are  also  rarely  open,  and  have  even 
less  of  an  instructive  character.  Not  even  the  memorials 
in  the  large  cities  have  any  educational  qualities.  They 
glorify  the  Tsar  and  the  generals  or  national  heroes,  and 
are  designed  only  to  aid  in  the  deification  of  the  Tsar  and 
national  self-esteem.  In  this  respect  they  are  behind 
Berlin,  where,  since  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom, 
no  small  number  of  statues  have  been  erected  which 
represent  neither  kings  nor  warriors.  The  re-action  in 
Russia  even  at  the  present  moment  is  so  great  that  even 
the  possession  of  a  statuette  of  Falconet’s  Peter  the 
Great  is  taken  as  a  sign  of  disloyalty  rather  than  the 
opposite :  Peter  was  a  man  of  the  West,  a  European. 

Besides  the  emperors  and  generals  in  bronze,  only  one 
single  statue  is  to  be  found  in  St.  Petersburg.  It  is  a 
very  unpretending  and  modest  memorial  of  the  fabulist 
Krylof,  in  the  imperial  summer  park?  the  playground  for 
children.  It  is  placed  just  as  that  of  Hans  Christian 
Andersen  is  in  the  Rosenburg  Park,  only  the  Russian 
statue  is  better,  and  the  various  reliefs  on  the  base,  which 


42 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


represent  the  whole  animal  world  crowded  together,  are 
more  amusing,  though  on  the  other  hand,  less  artistic 
than  the  Danish.  In  Moscow  there  is  a  large  group  of 
the  two  liberators  from  the  yoke  of  the  Poles,  the 
butcher  Minin  and  Prince  Pozharsky,  whose  celebrity 
dates  from  1612,  and  to  whom  also  a  memorial  is  erected 
iu  Novgorod.  There  is  besides  this  a  modern  statue  of 
Pushkin,  which  is  not  remarkably  good.  Smolensk  is  the 
birthplace  of  the  musical  composer  Glinka,  and  there  is 
found  a  statue  of  him,  a  square-built  little  man,  not  par¬ 
ticularly  suitable  for  the  plastic  art.  Nevertheless,  they 
had  the  original  idea  of  putting  slender  cross-lines  in  the 
iron  railing  which  is  around  the  memorial,  to  represent 
the  musical  staff,  and  thus  encircle  the  composer  with 
his  best  known  melodies. 

While  other  European  states  do  something,  even  if  not 
all  they  might,  for  the  instruction  of  the  people,  the 
government  here  dislikes  popular  education,  and  puts  in¬ 
numerable  obstacles  in  the  way,  —  nay,  even  does  what  it 
can  to  oppose  it.  As  has  already  been  said,  the  cities  do 
not  afford  nearly  as  many  opportunities  for  the  instruc¬ 
tion  and  cultivation  of  the  common  people  as  the  cities 
of  other  countries.  As  in  the  country  the  fight  against 
knowledge  can  be  carried  on  with  much  greater  emphasis, 
a  still  more  appalling  ignorance  is  the  result,  in  spite  of 
the  excellent  natural  capacities  of  the  people. 

It  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that  there  is  now, 
as  in  the  time  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas,  a  constant  exertion 
on  the  part  of  the  rulers  to  make  real  knowledge  impos¬ 
sible  and  to  destroy  all  individual  and  independent  will. 

Three  kinds  of  books  are  published  in  Russia :  —  First, 
the  forbidden,  that  is,  nearly  all  valuable  literature, 
except  when  with  ineffable  art  and  resignation  it  is 
shaped  so  as  exactly  to  suit  the  demands  of  the  Russian 


OBSTACLES  TO  EDUCATION. 


43 


censor;  second,  the  allowed  innocent  belles-lettres  and 
purely  technical  works,  yet  with  this  limitation  that 
in  the  German  Conversations-lexicons  of  Myers  and 
Brockhaus  all  the  articles  about  Russia  and  all  the  biog¬ 
raphies  of  Russians  are  blackened  over  on  account  of  the 
spirit  in  which  they  are  written,  though  they  necessarily 
contain  almost  nothing  but  known  facts.  The  anxiety 
even  extends  to  foreign  lands.  In  a  French  book  which 
was  sent  to  me  from  Russia  last  year,  the  censor  had 
cut  out  a  leaf,  on  which,  as  the  context  showed,  was 
something  not  unfavorable,  but  not  absolutely  favorable, 
to  the  deceased  Tsaritsa.  Third,  the  last  category  of 
books  consists  of  those  recommended  for  use  in  educa¬ 
tional  establishments  and  schools  for  the  common  peo¬ 
ple.  An  idea  can  easily  be  formed  as  to  what  these  are. 

The  solicitude  lest  the  popular  standard  of  knowledge 
should  be  raised  is  so  great  that  obstacles  are  put  in  the 
way  of  elementary  instruction  of  the  youngest  chil¬ 
dren.  When,  a  few  years  since,  a  lady  of  high  rank,  of 
whom  nothing  whatever  of  a  revolutionary  character 
was  known,  the  daughter  of  a  well-known  minister,  who 
under  Alexander  II.  had  carried  through  a  legal  reform, 
a  princess  of  great  wealth,  who  could  not  possibly  be 
mistaken  as  having  any  wish  to  excite  the  peasants  to 
unlawful  trespasses  on  foreign  soil,  wished  to  found  an 
orphan  asylum  in  the  country  where  she  lived,  she 
sought  permission  for  two  years  in  vain  and  then  re¬ 
ceived  a  refusal.  Leave  must  be  asked  in  such  cases, 
and  this  kind  of  petition  is  not  granted  as  a  rule. 

Thus  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  condition  of  the  peas¬ 
ants  in  most  respects  makes  an  impression  of  profound 
ignorance  and  of  an  Asiatic  spirit  of  submission. 

The  lady  of  rank,  on  her  estate,  is  greeted  by  every 
peasant  or  workman,  by  every  young  or  old  woman  of 


44 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  lower  classes,  who  would  ask  assistance  of  any  kind, 
by  falling  flat  on  the  face  at  her  feet.  Not  only  every 
one  who  would  beg,  but  every  man  or  woman  who  would 
ask  a  favor,  falls  on  the  knee  before  her  and  touches  the 
forehead  to  the  dirt  of  the  road.  No  remonstrances  can 
make  them  give  up  this  custom.  Significantly  enough, 
the  striking  of  the  forehead  (to  the  earth)  is  even  at  the 
present  time  the  name  of  petitions  to  the  Tsar  (clielo- 
bitnaya). 

The  superstition  is  as  great  as  the  ignorance. 

In  turbulent  times  it  not  infrequently  assumes  a 
formidable  character.  When,  in  the  time  of  the  Tsar 
Nicholas,  the  cholera  broke  out  in  St.  Petersburg,  the 
common  people  ascribed  such  a  mysterious  origin  to  the 
epidemic  that  they  attacked  in  a  frenzy  some  boys  who 
had  been  seen  pouring  the  cholera  into  the  Neva,  and  in 
one  of  the  market-squares  they  rose  in  a  great  revolt 
against  the  police,  because  they  had  not  arrested  two 
persons  who  had  brought  cholera  powder  into  a  house 
to  spread  the  contagion.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that 
Nicholas,  who  was  just  driving  past  in  his  sleigh,  and 
witnessed  the  tumult,  quelled  it  at  once  by  raising  his 
arm  in  anger,  and  calling  in  a  loud  tone  :  “  On  your  Joiees.” 
This  is  the  scene  which  is  portrayed  in  relief  on  the  base 
of  the  memorial  to  him. 

The  superstition  of  the  people  still  continues.  In  a 
manufacturing  region  in  middle  Russia,  where  I  was 
staying,  the  lightning  struck  several  times,  or  some  other 
misfortune  happened,  on  Trinity  Sunday.  To  avert  the 
wrath  of  Heaven,  this  year,  the  workmen  asked  the  monks 
In  a  cloister  some  miles  away  to  lend  them  the  miracle- 
working  image  of  “the  Blessed  Virgin  with  three  hands,” 
which  in  that  district  is  regarded  as  endowed  with  holy, 
supernatural  power,  and  this  picture  was  brought  to  the 


POPULAR  SUPERSTITION. 


45 


country  town,  with  great  pomp,  in  a  special  railway  car, 
accompanied  by  the  singing  of  the  priests  and  the  swing¬ 
ing  of  censers.  The  people  collected  at  the  station  in 
such  numbers  that  those  who  were  on  the  front  part  of 
the  platform  were  compelled  to  take  refuge  in  the  rail¬ 
way  carriage,  to  escape  being  crushed.  The  picture  was 
brought  into  the  church,  where  a  Te  Deum  was  sung. 
The  day  passed  without  either  storm  or  accident,  and 
there  was  not  a  workman  who  had  a  doubt  as  to  the 
supernatural  cause  thereof. 

Another  illustration  of  the  spiritual  point  of  view  of 
the  peasants  and  priests  is  the  following  from  the  same 
time.  Not  far  from  the  little  town  Biezhitsa  the  huge 
head  of  a  mammoth  was  found.  A  young  princess,  whose 
country-seat  was  in  the  vicinity,  bought  this  head  of  the 
peasants.  Some  one  or  other  who  wanted  to  play  a  trick 
on  the  public  or  the  clergy  wrote  to  the  local  newspaper 
of  the  department  that  the  peasants,  after  the  head  was 
dug  up,  had  brought  a  priest,  who  had  read  the  prayers 
for  the  dead  over  it  and  then  buried  it  again.  —  Could 
one  believe  it !  On  this  account  the  whole  clergy  of 
that  region  were  excited,  and  just  because  what  had  been 
stated  in  the  article  was  untrue  and  nothing  had  hap¬ 
pened.  What  if  it  had  been  a  human  head,  and  they  had 
neglected  to  read  the  prayers  for  the  dead !  The  con¬ 
sistory  in  St.  Petersburg  sent  a  mandate  to  the  most 
distinguished  prelate,  required  an  examination  into  what 
had  happened,  and  commanded  that  the  clergy  of  the 
district  should  take  the  measure  of  the  head  that  had 
been  found  (literally  —  “inasmuch  as  it  is  of  anthropo¬ 
logical  interest  ”  ).  The  day  after  a  whole  procession  of 
priests  arrived  at  the  country  place  and  held  a  great 
council  as  to  how  they  ought  to  act  to  show  that  this 
was  a  mammoth  and  not  an  antediluvian  man,  as  they 


46 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


expressed  it,  until  the  private  tutor,  a  Panslavist  natural¬ 
ist,  who  was  able  to  inspire  confidence,  fortified  by  his 
diploma,  measured  the  head  and  gave  tire  formal  decla¬ 
ration  that  this  head  had  never  rested  on  the  body  of  a 
prehistoric  Christian,  but  on  a  mammoth.  The  subject 
is  well  fitted  for  a  Russian  farce,  only  it  would  never  be 
printed  or  acted. 

The  workmen  in  this  district  lived  in  barracks.  One 
hundred  and  fifty  workmen  slept  in  a  narrow  room. 
Bunks  were  built  up  on  the  walls,  so  that  they  lay  and 
slept  as  in  berths  on  board  a  ship,  except  that  these 
bunks  or  benches  were  so  wide  that  the  workmen  lay 
with  their  heads  against  the  walls  and  their  feet  towards 
the  middle  of  the  floor.  There  was  no  other  furniture  in 
the  room,  nothing  whatever,  —  no  pillows,  no  carpet,  no 
chair,  no  table.  The  furnishing  was  exactly  like  a  dog- 
kennel.  This  unfortunate  condition  depends  on  the  fact 
that  there  are  everywhere  found  contractors  who  keep 
hundreds  of  workmen  in  the  vicinity  of  the  large  manu¬ 
factories,  to  let  them  out  as  soon  as  there  is  need  of  them. 
The  food  they  get  is  a  porridge  which  is  scarcely  cooked. 
The  rest  is  uneatable  bread  and  undrinkable  kvas  with  a 
few  pieces  of  cucumber  in  it. 

A  female  physician  gave  the  following  account  of  a 
visit  to  one  of  these  barracks  :  A  woman  was  expecting 
her  confinement  in  a  little  room  where  eight  persons 
were  lying  about  her.  When  I  was  called,  I  was  obliged 
to  shove  them  aside  in  order  to  deliver  the  woman.  They 
saw  what  was  coming,  shrugged  their  shoulders  a  little, 
and  went  to  sleep. 

The  poorest  workmen  in  this  manufactory,  where 
mandrels  are  made,  earn  17  cents  a  day,  the  more  skil¬ 
ful  27  cents,  and  the  best  workmen  43  cents. 

This  is  the  human  material  which  the  young  men  and 


THE  PEOPLE  TO  BE  EDUCATED. 


47 


women,  who  strive  to  make  the  great  populace  share  in 
the  advanced  ideas  of  the  age,  must  educate  and  rely 
upon.  It  is  plain  that  the  education  will  take  time,  and 
the  aid  they  are  now  able  to  find  is  of  no  account. 

Two  short  dialogues  of  Turgenief  are  given  below, 
which,  on  account  of  the  censor,  were  omitted  from  the 
“  Poems  in  Prose,”  —  entitled  “  The  workman  and  the 
man  with  the  white  hands.” 

In  the  first,  the  workmen  wonder  at  the  stranger,  and 
reject  his  claim  of  being  one  of  them,  while  they  point 
to  their  own  working  hands,  which  smell  of  filth  and  tar, 
and  to  his  delicate  white  hands  :  “  What  do  they  smell 
of  ?  ”  —  “  Smell,  yourselves.”  —  “  It  is  strange  !  We 
should  say  they  smell  of  iron.”  —  “Yes,  of  iron.  For 
six  whole  years  I  have  worn  handcuffs  on  them.”  — 
“  Why  ?  ”  —  “  Because  I  thought  of  your  happiness.  I 
wanted  to  make  you  poor  fellows  free,  I  rebelled  against 
your  oppressors  ;  on  that  account  I  was  put  in  prison.”  — 
“  Prison !  ”  —  “  Yes.”  —  “  Why  were  you  rebellious  ?  ” 

In  the  second  dialogue,  which  occurred  two  years 
later,  the  same  workman  speaks  to  another  about  the 
young  gentleman  who  once  talked  with  them  :  “  He  is  to 
be  hanged  to-day ;  the  order  has  come.”  —  “  Has  he  been 
rebelling  again  ?  ”  —  “  Yes  —  again.”  —  “  Well,  Dmitri, 
don’t  you  believe  we  could  get  a  piece  of  the  rope  he  is 
hanged  by  ?  They  say  it  brings  good  luck  to  the 
house.”  —  “  Yes.  Piotr,  let  us  try.” 

This,  then,  is  the  human  material  which  the  young  men 
and  women  who  “  go  out  among  the  people  ”  try  to  edu¬ 
cate  and  elevate.  They  do  it  with  an  untiring,  heroic 
zeal,  which  is  beyond  all  praise  and  without  parallel  in 
any  land.  They  leave  relatives  and  friends,  expose  them¬ 
selves  to  cold  and  hunger,  hatred  and  derision,  scorn  and 
insult ;  they  brave  imprisonment,  sickness  and  death, 


48 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


with  no  other  reward  than  that  their  own  conscience 
gives  them.  No  honor  of  any  kind  awaits  them ;  their 
work  is  hidden,  their  offering  is  unrecognized.  Their 
outer  life  is  a  series  of  struggles  and  sufferings. 

They  constitute  the  outwardly  active  element  of  the 
Russian  intelligentia,  —  a  world  by  itself,  with  its  own 
moral  qualities,  precarious  at  times,  but  always  of 
more  value  than  the  mercantile  compound,  which  in 
other  parts  of  Europe  goes  under  the  name  of  moral,  —  a 
pure  young  world,  with  the  fiery  faith  of  youth,  and  the 
passive  character  of  Russian  heroism,  constant  even  in 
torture.  The  faith  in  their  historic  mission,  and  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  their  spiritual  power,  sustains  them. 

Tikhomirof,  who  has  been  one  of  the  leading  spirits 
in  revolutionary  agitations,  and  who  now  lives  an  exile 
in  Paris,  greatly  deploring  the  attempts  at  assassination 
which  alone  have  made  possible  the  re-action  now  pre¬ 
vailing  in  Russia,  is  always  fully  trustworthy  when  he 
portrays  single  traits,  though  not  always  when  he  gener¬ 
alizes.  He  speaks  of  a  young  prisoner  who  was  con¬ 
stantly  refractory  and  asking  for  unheard-of  favors,  such 
as  permission  for  the  prisoners  confined  in  cells  to  talk 
and  walk  together.  “  It  is  necessary  to  protest,”  he  con¬ 
tinually  repeated.  —  “  But  what  can  you  accomplish  ?  ” 
said  his  comrade.  “  You  forget  that  you  are  under  lock 
and  key.  How  are  you  going  to  find  the  power  of  compel¬ 
ling  the  authorities  ?  ”  —  “  The  power  !  How  ?  In  my¬ 
self,  in  you.  ...  I  am  viyself  the  power  !  ”  —  “  My  dear 
friend,  that  power  the  others  can  crush  in  a  minute  !  ”  — 
“  Crush  it !  let  us  see  first !  let  them  try  !  ”  1 

Without  doubt,  in  a  classical  sense  the  fundamental 
trait  of  invincibility  is  the  strength  of  the  party  of  agi¬ 
tation  in  Russia. 

1  Tikhomirof:  La  Russie  politique  et  sociale,  p.  280. 


NIHILISTS. 


49 


A  conception  of  the  stoicism  of  Russian  prisoners  can 
be  gained  by  reading,  in  Dostoyevski’s  “Recollections 
of  a  Dead  House,”  the  number  of  lashes  they  endure 
without  a  complaint  or  a  groan.  In  later  times,  there 
have  been  repeated  instances  of  the  resolution  with 
which  political  prisoners  have  sought  death  to  avoid  dis¬ 
closing  their  accomplices.  One  has  killed  himself  by  the 
aid  of  petroleum,  and  another  has  cut  his  throat  with  a 
fragment  of  glass,  all  access  to  weapons  having  been 
denied  them. 

Out  of  Russia,  an  already  extended  list  of  revolutionary 
spirits  in  this  land  has  attracted  the  attention  and  kept 
curiosity  on  the  alert.  We  call  them  Nihilists, —  of  which 
the  Russian  pronunciation  is  neec/ilist,  which,  however,  is 
now  obsolete.  Confined  to  the  terroristic  group  in  Europe 
the  number  of  these  persons  is  certainly  very  small. 
Perhaps,  as  is  thought  in  Russia,  there  are  five  hundred 
in  all,  who  busy  themselves,  even  if  reluctantly,  with 
thoughts  of  resorting  to  bombs  and  murderous  weapons 
to  inspire  terror.  Rut  it  is  not  exactly  this  group  that  is 
meant  when  we  speak  of  that  nihilistic  force  in  society 
which  extends  everywhere,  into  all  circles,  and  finds  sup¬ 
port  and  strongholds  at  widely  spread  points.  It  is 
indeed  not  very  different  from  what  elsewhere  in  Europe 
is  regarded  as  culture,  advanced  culture :  the  profound 
scepticism  in  regard  to  our  existing  institutions  in  their 
present  form,  what  we  call  royal  prerogative,  church, 
marriage,  property. 

The  nigilists  even  do  not  call  themselves  by  this  old 
name,  to  which  currency  was  given  by  Turgenief,  in 
“  Fathers  and  Sons.”  It  dates  from  the  time  when  Rus¬ 
sia  by  the  death  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  had  been  liberated 
from  the  system  of  compulsion  intensified  to  the  highest 
degree  under  an  absolute  monarchy,  and  when  not  only 


50 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  liberation  of  the  serfs  was  in  the  air,  but  thought, 
which  for  a  generation  had  been  paralyzed,  at  once  felt 
itself  free,  unhampered,  and  unrestrained,  and  speech, 
which  so  long  had  been  the  serf  of  the  government,  was 
made  free,  or  by  a  sort  of  inward  necessity  assumed  free¬ 
dom.  At  that  time,  everything  which  had  the  ring  of  a 
human  voice  was  pure  criticism,  negation,  revolt  against 
all  ancient  authority.  With  the  wrath  and  enthusiasm 
of  youth,  their  inexperience  ran  away  with  them.  The 
young  men  showed  their  democratic  proclivities  by  not 
combing  their  long  locks,  not  washing  their  hands,  and 
going  about  fantastically  dressed ;  the  young  women 
asserted  their  independence  by  wearing  their  hair  short, 
a  plain  dress,  and  using  the  blunt  speech  of  the  peasant. 
Hatred  of  the  old  traditions  of  society,  its  hypocrisy  and 
its  old  customs,  went  so  far  that  everything  which  had 
hitherto  been  held  sacred  was  despised  on  account  of 
the  respect  it  enjoyed. 

Yet  this  period  was  of  short  duration.  Niekråsof  (in  the 
“  Cabinet  of  Reading  ”)  makes  a  son  answer  his  father’s 
complaints  in  the  following  manner :  “  Nihilist  is  a  stu¬ 
pid  word.  But  if  you  understand  by  it  a  man  of  liberal 
ideas,  who  does  not  intend  to  live  at  the  expense  of  others, 
but  works,  seeks  for  the  truth,  is  striving  not  to  live  a 
useless  life,  looks  every  scoundrel  straight  in  the  eye,  — 
nay,  sometimes  gives  him  a  thrashing, — in  that  sense  I 
do  not  see  anything  bad  in  it,  and  in  that  sense  am  I  a 
nihilist.” 

At  the  present  time,  the  discontented  youth,  in  their 
own  language,  call  themselves  Nyelegalni,  —  that  is, 
outlaws.  To  obtain  a  correct  idea  of  them,  you  must,  at 
the  outset,  forget  the  old  Bazarof  (in  “Fathers  and 
Sons  ”),  who  was  at  one  time  a  true  conception,  but  is 
so  no  longer,  as  well  as  the  young  people  in  “Virgin 


DISCONTENTED  YOUTH. 


51 


Soil,”  who  are  foreign  creations,  and  were  never  a  true 
representation,  but  particularly  Dostoyevski’s  “  The  Pos¬ 
sessed,”  an  ultra-reactionary  caricature  of  a  tendency  in 
which  he  participated  in  his  youth,  but  to  which  by  the 
lapse  of  time  he  had  taken  an  aversion.  And  it  must  be 
remembered  that  no  other  sketches  of  this  youth  can  be 
found,  in  books  which  are  published  in  Russia,  than 
such  as  are  intended  to  pass  the  censor.  And  it  would 
be  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
than  for  a  sympathetic  sketch  of  the  outlaAV  elements  of 
society  to  go  through  the  Russian  censorship. 

A  plainly  clad,  very  intelligent  young  girl  came  to 
a  country  town  in  the  department  of  Orel,  wrho  sup¬ 
ported  herself  by  the  modest  and  unartistic  employment 
of  painting  portraits  of  the  dead  from  photographs. 
While  very  young,  with  some  other  young  girls  she  had 
gone  among  the  people  in  the  country  to  teach  the  peas¬ 
ants  to  read  and  their  wives  to  sew  ;  she  wished  for  once 
and  all  to  live  with  them.  The  authorities  arrested  these 
young  girls,  separated  them,  and  sent  them  all  by  the  ad¬ 
ministrative  process  to  different  remote  towns,  despatch¬ 
ing  this  one  to  a  very  small  town  in  the  department  of 
Vologda.  There  she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Viera 
Sassulitch,  who  was  also  exiled,  and  they  lived  there 
together  for  several  years.  In  this  way  she  became  in¬ 
fected  with  revolutionary  ideas.  She  was  especially  on 
her  guard  with  the  families  of  rank  and  wealth  in  the 
vicinity.  But  she  met  a  lady  to  whom,  after  further 
acquaintance  had  inspired  her  with  confidence,  she  said : 
“  I  see  you  are  human ;  I  class  you  as  one  of  us.” 

The  most  of  these  young  girls  are  plain,  rather  unat¬ 
tractive,  hardly  ever  sensual.  They  are  wholly  entranced 
by  their  ideas.  Several  ladies  who  were  present  as 
spectators  at  the  celebrated  political  trial  which  goes  by 


52 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  name  of  the  Trial  of  193  report  that  all  the  women 
who  were  implicated  in  it  looked  like  pale  nuns,  thin, 
very  serious,  care-worn;  only  one  of  them  was  at  all 
pretty. 

The  construction  which  obtains  in  the  Eussian  intellv- 
rjentia  of  the  freedom  which  can  be  found  in  the  inter¬ 
course  between  men  and  women  is  directly  the  opposite 
of  the  French  and  Polish.  FTowhere  is  the  relation 
between  the  two  sexes  judged  with  more  liberality,  and 
in  the  cases  where  nature  has  broken  over  the  boundaries 
of  law  with  greater  toleration.  FTo  one  in  the  more  cul¬ 
tivated  circles  of  Eussia  finds  it  strange  if  a  man  and  a 
woman  seek  one  another’s  company  by  themselves.  Xo 
one  on  that  account  immediately  believes  that  there  is 
any  bond  of  love  between  them ;  least  of  all,  are  the  sexes 
regarded  here  (as  in  France)  as  on  every  opportunity 
attracted  to  each  other  from  brutish  impulses.  The 
Eussian  mother  is  generally  not  afraid  to  leave  her 
daughter  alone  with  a  young  man.  Perhaps  the  indiffer¬ 
ence  for  qxCen  dira-t-on  is  nowhere  greater  than  in  good 
society  here. 

When  Bourbaki’s  army,  in  1870,  was  forced  to  cross  the 
boundaries  into  Switzerland,  and  the  soldiers  were  obliged, 
after  forced  marches,  to  pass  the  night  in  the  open  streets, 
in  a  pouring  rain,  no  house,  where  there  were  only  women, 
would  open  its  doors  to  them.  Only  two  young  Eussian 
women,  who  were  studying  in  Switzerland,  gave  up  to 
some  soldiers  the  only  room  they  had,  and  passed  the 
whole  night  in  their  company  rather  than  let  them  sleep 
in  the  street,  entirely  unconcerned  what  stupid  and 
cruel  popular  judgment  would  be  given  to  this  step. 
Also  nothing  is  more  common  than  the  bond  of  friend¬ 
ship  between  young  students  of  both  sexes,  where  com¬ 
mon  interests,  common  ideals  and  plans  for  the  future. 


FREE  LOVE. 


53 


form  that  connecting  link  which  in  other  countries  is  due 
only  to  the  attraction  of  love.  Here  the  latter,  natur¬ 
ally,  may  be  an  element,  but  just  as  often  it  is  wanting. 
The  intellectual  curiosity  and  the  youthful  zeal  for 
reform  are  greater  than  elsewhere. 

It  must,  however,  be  understood  that  these  young  wo¬ 
men  would  like  to  live  a  full  human  life.  Anatole  Leroy- 
Beaulieu,  who,  plainly,  has  obtained  the  far  larger  part 
of  the  material  for  his  valuable  book  about  Russia  from 
a  small  circle  composed  of  those  who  were  formerly 
liberal  but  are  now  strongly  conservative,  has  described 
the  nihilist  women  as  living  in  a  distinct  kingdom  of 
disorganization,  where  “the  free-love”  principle  has  in¬ 
troduced  a  “manner  of  life  customary  among  monkeys,” 
and  he  speaks  with  a  surprised  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  in  these  brutish  circles  there  are,  nevertheless,  now 
and  then  found  vestals,  who  actually  abstain  from  using 
the  freedom  which  they  support  in  principle. 

Tikhomirof  (1886)  cites  against  him  that  the  free  love, 
only  not  interpreted  as  it  is  understood  by  the  European 
populace,  has  long  ago  been  the  recognized  principle  of 
the  whole  Russian  intelligentia — a  principle  which  is 
not  even  discussed  any  more,  just  as  we  no  longer  dis¬ 
cuss  religious  freedom  or  the  freedom  of  the  press.  It 
can  be  said  that  since  Tchernuishevski  wrote  his  prin¬ 
cipal  work,  “  What  is  to  be  done  ?  ”  (1863),  —  nay,  sub¬ 
stantially,  since  Alexander  Herzen  wrote  his  romance, 
“  Who  is  to  blame  ?  ”  (1817),  —  this  problem  is  regarded 
as  substantially  (so  far  as  morals  are  concerned)  solved. 
Love  is  not  understood  in  Russia,  as  in  other  countries, 
as  mere  sensualism.  And  there  is  found  within  the 
Russian  intelligentia  a  true  worship  of  love,  —  as  of  a 
holy  thing,  lawful  in  itself. 

The  respect  for  the  formal  legal  bond  between  man  and 


54 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


woman  is  comparatively  weak ;  tlie  view  of  the  marriage 
relation  as  a  means  of  support  is  unpopular ;  sympathy 
in  the  case  where  repentance  at  leisure  has  followed  the 
marriage  in  haste  often  has  a  humorous  coloring  here. 
It  not  infrequently  happens  that,  when,  for  one  cause  or 
another,  a  greater  incongruity  of  temper  than  usual  has 
been  found  to  exist,  the  husband  and  wife  give  each 
other  complete  liberty  and  continue  their  common  life 
as  good  friends.  The  young  girl  has  here,  perhaps  even 
more  frequently  than  elsewhere,  her  ideal  of  life;  she 
does  not  wish  to  live  a  useless  life.  It  would  not  be 
possible  for  her  to  surrender  herself  coldly  and  brutally 
like  the  very  unreal  nihilist  in  the  play,  by  a  Danish 
author,  “  The  Lodger  ”  which  is  otherwise  very  admirable. 
She  would  also  be  ashamed  of  entering  into  a  matrimonial 
contract  simply  for  profit.  But  she  would  not  be  ashamed 
of  forming  a  connection  with  a  man  without  the  consent 
of  her  parents,  and  without  any  legal  formalities,  if  she 
were  seriously  in  love  with  him.  She  is  more  indifferent 
to  the  judgment  of  the  world  than  are  the  women  of 
other  countries. 

This  mental  and  moral  attitude  has  no  connection  with 
frivolity  or  thoughtlessness.  It  is  a  fact  shown  by  sta¬ 
tistics  that  two  thousand  women  annually,  of  their  own 
accord,  accompany  the  exiles  to  Siberia,  frequently  to 
hard  labor.  In  this  way,  a  lady  of  high  rank,  Baroness 
Bekbinder,  some  years  ago  went  with  the  celebrated 
physician  Dr.  Weimar,  who  was  implicated  in  the  trials 
for  the  attempts  at  assassination. 

It  cau  generally  be  said  of  those  who  “  go  out  among 
the  people  ”  that,  when  the  home  life  is  oppressive  or 
obstructive,  they  seek  emancipation  from  it  at  any  cost. 
It  was  in  this  view  that  what  at  the  time  was  called  sham 
marriage  was  invented,  though  it  has  nearly  gone  out  of 


S 77.1 .1/  .17/1 7? 777.-1  GES. 


55 


use.  The  young  girl  found  a  comrade  of  the  same  views 
of  life  as  herself,  who  consented  to  marry  her /mo  forma, 
but  who  neither  had  nor  claimed  any  control  over  her, 
and  by  whose  aid  she  escaped  from  the  surveillance  of 
her  family.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  the  two  (as  in 
Mrs.  Gyliembourg’s  “Light  Nights”),  after  having  be¬ 
come  better  acquainted,  actually  marry  ;  in  other  cases 
the  man  is  said  to  have  abused  the  rights  formally  con¬ 
ferred  upon  him  and  a  separation  is  the  result.  Generally 
the  newly  married  couple  have  separated  from  each 
otheT  immediately  after  the  wedding,  each  being  free 
and  independent.  As  is  well  known  in  “Virgin  Soil,” 
Turgenief  has  described  a  kindred  case,  the  relation 
of  brother  and  sister  in  the  case  of  Nezhdanof  and 
Marianne,  after  he  carried  away  the  young  girl. 

However  much  these  young  women  feel  themselves 
drawn  towards  the  common  people,  it  very  seldom  hap¬ 
pens  that  they  fall  in  love  or  marry  out  of  their  own 
rank ;  and,  if  it  does  happen,  it  usually  brings  its  own 
punishment.  The  following  is  an  instance  from  my 
own  circle  of  acquaintance  :  A  young  girl  loved  a  man  of 
her  own,  the  higher  classes.  They  were  both  exiled  by 
the  administrative  process,  but  were  sent  to  the  opposite 
ends  of  Siberia  and  could  never  learn  the  least  thing 
about  each  other.  In  the  country  town  where  the  young 
girl  was,  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  years,  she  became 
acquainted  with  a  young  workman  exiled  for  the  same 
political  reasons  she  was.  She  met  him  daily.  He  fell 
passionately  in  love  with  her ;  they  had  a  child.  Other 
exiles,  on  the  way  home,  came  to  the  town.  Among 
them  was  a  young  man  of  the  same  class  in  society  as 
the  young  girl,  who  knew  something  about  her  lover. 
She  was  never  wearied  of  asking  him  questions,  and  sat 
and  talked  with  him  through  the  whole  night.  At  day- 


56 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


break,  as  she  was  sitting  with  the  child  at  her  breast, 
the  workman  killed  her  in  a  fit  of  jealous  frenzy.  He 
thought  that  in  her  face  he  read  regret  for  having 
stooped  down  to  him.  Two  years  after,  the  child  was 
brought  to  St.  Petersburg,  to  her  parents. 

Very  significant  and  instructive  is  an  unprinted  and 
prohibited  novel  of  Korolenko,  the  title  of  which  is 
“  Strange,”  and  the  plot  as  follows  :  — 

A  woman  has  been  sent  in  exile  to  a  distant  province. 
One  of  the  gendarmes  who  has  accompanied  the  young 
lady  is  the  narrator.  She  has  not  been  able  in  advance 
to  find  out  where  she  is  to  be  sent  to,  and  is  thus,  by  two 
gendarmes,  taken  almost  through  the  whole  of  Siberia. 
One  of  the  gendarmes,  an  uncultivated  but  fine  fellow, 
feels  so  deeply  affected  by  her  youth  and  charms  that 
he  actually  falls  in  love  with  her,  and  cannot  obey  his 
orders.  He  tells  her  the  name  of  the  town  which  is 
selected  for  her  abode.  “  Good  !  ”  she  says ;  “  there  are 
several  of  ours  there.”  Immediately  on  her  arrival,  she 
goes  to  a  young  man,  whose  name  she  knows,  but  whom 
she  has  never  seen,  and  takes  lodgings  in  his  house. 
She  falls  ill,  of  a  lung  disease. 

A  month  later  the  gendarme  comes  again  through  the 
town,  seeks  her  out,  and  finds  the  young  man  by  her 
bedside,  and  with  astonishment  hears  them  still  using 
the  formal  “you”  to  each  other.  It  is  impossible  for 
him  to  understand  what  kind  of  bond  it  is  which  unites 
them ;  it  is  clear  that  it  is  not  love ;  but  the  companion¬ 
ship  of  ideas  is  foreign  to  his  scope  of  comprehension. 
He  makes  known  to  the  young  girl  his  attachment  for 
her,  but  she  drives  him  away  with  the  greatest  abhor¬ 
rence.  She  does  not  dislike  him  personally;  but  solely 
because  he  is  a  gendarme,  from  principle,  from  love  for 
the  cause  to  which  she  has  devoted  her  life ;  he  is  for  her 


EARNESTNESS  OF  THE  REFORMERS. 


57 


not  a  human  being,  only  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of 
an  evil  power.  The  poor  gendarme  cannot  possibly 
understand  this  any  more  than  what  has  been  stated 
above. 

An  author,  who  has  a  European  reputation,  gave  me 
the  following  account  of  his  connection  with  this  circle : 
“  About  ten  years  ago,  while  I  was  living  in  Berlin,  I 
frequently  received  letters  from  discontented  Russians, 
of  both  sexes,  some  of  them  asking  me  to  write  for  them 
some  pamphlets,  which  they  could  translate  and  distrib¬ 
ute  among  the  peasants ;  and  others,  in  relation  to  a 
monograph  I  had  written  about  a  celebrated  revolution¬ 
ary  individual,  —  a  book  to  which  I  am  chiefly  indebted 
for  my  popularity  in  certain  social  circles  in  Russia.  A 
juvenile  naivete  shone  through  the  style  of  some  of  the 
letters;  but  the  tone  of  warm  juvenile  enthusiasm,  united 
to  an  energy  of  style, — which  is  uncommon  even  in  men 
of  ability,  —  in  one  letter,  where  the  Christian  name  of 
the  writer  was  only  indicated  by  an  initial,  awakened 
great  surprise  in  me.  As  I  remarked,  in  my  answer,  that 
it  was  not  new  to  me  to  find  enthusiasm  and  energy 
among  the  young  men  in  Russia,  I  received,  to  my  amaze¬ 
ment,  the  following  reply :  ‘  It  is  very  possible  that  you 
have  been  accustomed  to  find  these  qualities  among  our 
young  men ;  but  it  does  not  apply  to  my  case,  for  I  have 
for  some  years  already  been  a  grandmother.’  An  ex 
tended  correspondence  was  the  result  of  this  letter. 
But,  after  the  lapse  of  some  time,  this,  and  other  corre 
spondence  of  a  similar  nature,  had  to  be  suspended,  on 
account  of  the  innumerable  precautions  my  correspond¬ 
ents  were  obliged  to  take.  As  several  of  my  books  had 
at  that  time  just  been  forbidden  in  Russia,  they  did  not 
dare  to  write  my  name  on  the  envelopes.  They  changed 
the  name,  so  that  I  was  obliged  to  inform  the  letter- 


58 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


carriers  of  it.  At  tlie  time  of  the  attempts  at  assassina¬ 
tion,  all  correspondence  of  this  kind  was  suspended.” 

Not  infrequently  they  are  very  young  children  who 
embark  upon  the  peculiarly  Eussian  plans  for  the  im¬ 
provement  of  the  world.  For,  even  if  the  old  sometimes 
possess  a  youthful  enthusiasm,  yet  in  Eussia,  as  else¬ 
where,  it  is  the  rule  that  years  and  experience  bring 
both  men  and  women  to  regard  the  existing  state  of 
things  as  stronger  than  it  is,  and  the  prospect  of  being 
able  to  overthrow  it,  as  much  less  promising  than  it 
appeared  to  them  in  their  youth.  The  observation  has 
also  long  since  been  made  that,  in  the  numerous  political 
trials  of  the  last  twenty  years,  hardly  any  one  has  been 
convicted  who  was  over  thirty  years  old  ;  even  those 
who  were  twenty-five  years  old  were  uncommon,  the 
ages  of  the  majority  varying  from  seventeen  to  twenty- 
three. 

In  the  spring  of  1887,  a  young  girl  of  sixteen  was 
arrested  in  St.  Petersburg,  whose  parents  were  well 
known  everywhere  in  good  society.  Out  of  regard  to 
the  high  standing  of  her  father,  she  was  set  at  liberty ; 
but  yet  with  such  conditions  that  she  now  remains  under 
the  surveillance  of  the  police.  A  group  of  young  stu¬ 
dents  had  a  weekly  meeting  in  her  mother’s  house,  —  to 
read  Shakespeare  aloud  in  Eussian,  as  it  was  said.  The 
fact  of  these  six  or  seven  students  meeting  together  so 
regularly  aroused  suspicion ;  and  the  police  sent  a  warn¬ 
ing,  received  an  explanation,  and  answered :  “  It  would 
be  better  to  abandon  these  readings.” 

They  apparently  complied.  Then  the  young  students 
were  arrested.  A  manuscript  translation  of  a  little  so¬ 
cialistic  tract,  written  by  a  man  by  the  name  of  Thun, 
was  found  in  the  rooms  of  one  of  them ;  and  a  card  of 
invitation  was  found,  in  the  same  handwriting,  signed 


GIRLS  yIS  PROPAGANDISTS. 


59 


with  the  young  girl’s  name.  It  was  of  no  avail  that  she 
denied  all  knowledge  of  the  tract  contained  in  the  manu¬ 
script. 

She  was  very  peculiar:  homely,  with  beautiful  eyes; 
difficult  to  become  acquainted  with,  for  a  little  thing 
would  silence  her.  In  the  presence  of  a  dashing  woman 
of  the  world  or  a  beautiful  coquette,  she  opened  not  her 
mouth.  She  contended  that  it  was  impossible  to  say  a 
word  in  the  presence  of  that  kind  of  woman.  She  had 
the  whole  severity  of  youth;  forbearance  was  a  virtue 
she  knew  only  by  name.  And  she  had  youth’s  naive 
faith  in  the  efficacy  of  every  kind  of  propaganda.  Her 
mother,  a  lady  of  thirty-five  years  of  age,  was  high-spir¬ 
ited  and  passionate,  with  all  the  luxurious  vital  powers 
of  the  Russian  blood.  The  whole  emotional  life  of  the 
daughter  had  been  absorbed  by  the  intellectual ;  she 
managed  her  mother  as  if  the  latter  had  been  her  own 
grown-up  child. 

Still  more  rare  than  this  type,  there  is  among  these 
women  the  patient,  light-hearted,  on  whom  no  oppo¬ 
sition  makes  any  impression.  A  letter  from  a  young 
married  woman,  who  had  been  exiled  to  a  town  in 
Siberia,  but  without  being  confined  in  prison,  was  some¬ 
what  to  this  effect:  “Dear  Friends,  —  I  can  imagine  that 
you  are  somewhat  uneasy  about  me.  But  never  in  my 
life  have  I  been  happier.  It  is  quite  pleasant  to  be  sep¬ 
arated  for  a  while  from  my  beloved  husband,  who  was 
beginning  to  tire  me.  But  that  is  truly  one  of  the  most 
unimportant  things.  I  have  been  received  here  not  as 
a  criminal,  but  as  a  queen.  The  whole  town  is  made  up 
of  exiles,  descendants  of  exiles,  friends  of  exiles.  They 
actually  vie  with  each  other  in  showing  me  kindness  — 
nay,  homage.  Every  other  evening,  I  am  at  a  ball,  and 
never  off  the  floor.  This  place  is  a  true  ball-paradise,”  etc. 


60 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


More  frequent  than  this  arrogance  is  a  humility,  a 
profound,  boundless  modesty,  which  is  genuinely  Slavic. 
In  a  small  house  with  a  garden,  in  a  remote  quarter  of 
Moscow,  lived  an  extremely  finely  endowed  young  girl, 
who  for  many  years  had  been  severely  ill ;  and,  as  a  re¬ 
sult,  from  time  to  time,  especially  when  excited,  lost  the 
power  of  speech.  She  lived  a  purely  intellectual  life, 
wholly  absorbed  in  intellectual  pursuits  ;  and,  on  account 
of  her  poor  health  and  weakness,  was  hardly  a  woman. 
But  a  purer  and  stronger  intellectual  enthusiasm,  and 
more  arduous  exertions  in  that  direction,  are  not  often 
seen.  She  translated  a  great  deal  from  foreign  lan¬ 
guages,  and  also  wrote,  herself.  There  was  a  combination 
of  energy  and  the  most  profound  humility,  which  struck 
the  stranger  who  conversed  with  her.  Her  father  had 
been  a  well  known  professor  of  mathematics.  She  and 
her  two  sisters,  bright  and  healthy  girls,  supported 
themselves  respectably,  orphans  as  they  were,  without 
aid.  The  worship  of  the  gifted  invalid  by  the  two  sis¬ 
ters,  especially  by  the  younger,  was  very  touching. 

One  evening,  in  a  company,  a  distinguished  foreigner, 
who  had  spent  some  time  in  St.  Petersburg,  described 
another  young  girl  of  the  same  turn  of  mind  and  of  the 
same  plane  of  culture,  only  seventeen  years  old,  and  of 
far  bolder  temperament.  “  I  have,”  he  continued,  “  met 
her  for  a  short  time  in  society,  but  we  were  almost 
immediately  separated.  I  merely  noticed  that  she  had 
beautiful,  clear  eyes,  and  cordial,  but  very  decided  man¬ 
ners.  The  day  before  my  departure,  I  received  a  long 
letter  from  her,  which  seemed  to  me  to  be  very  interest¬ 
ing,  because  it  gave  me  the  impression  of  being  charac¬ 
teristic  of  a  whole  family.  She  wrote,  — 

“  ‘  Permit  me  to  express  to  you  in  writing  what  I  had 
not  any  opportunity  to  say  otherwise.  1  do  not  speak 


A  YOUNG  GIRL'S  LETTER. 


61 


in  my  own  name  alone,  but  in  behalf  of  a  large  part  of 
the  young  people  of  Russia,  with  whom  you  have  not 
had  time  to  become  adequately  acquainted.  I  should 
have  said  it  to  you,  day  before  yesterday,  at  the  D — s’ ; 
but  could  not  in  the  few  moments  we  talked  together. 
You  regretted  having  known,  comparatively,  so  few  of  the 
young  people.  <  That  is  partly  because  the  time  of  your 
visit  was  very  unfortunately  chosen,  so  far  as  the  Rus¬ 
sian  youth  are  concerned.  It  is  just  the  time  of  exami¬ 
nation  in  all  of  the  public  institutions  of  education.  But, 
entirely  apart  from  that,  the  Russian  youth  could  not 
make  themselves  known  to  you.  Life  deprives  us  of  its 
highest  good,  —  freedom,  and  all  the  happiness  which  is 
inseparable  from  it ;  but  do  not  believe  us  insensible  to 
that  which  alone  gives  meaning  and  value  to  human  life. 
Quite  the  contrary.  If  fate  has  sent  us  so  few  blessings, 
we  love  those  we  do  receive  all  the  more  dearly,  and 
prize  them  the  more  highly.  We  prize  above  every¬ 
thing  the  science  which  emancipates.  It  is  not  allowed 
to  the  Russian  youth  to  express  in  writing  what  they 
feel ;  but  it  would  pain  me,  as  a  patriot,  if  you  should 
get  an  unjust  impression  of  them.  You  once  called 
Rudin  the  typical  representative  of  the  Russian  weak¬ 
ness  of  character.  “Weakness  !  ”  I  exclaimed  to  myself 
when  I  heard  it.  Oh,  no  !  Do  not  forget  that  the  Rus¬ 
sian  literature  is  only  an  incomplete  reflex  of  the  life 
and  character  of  the  Russian  people.  Do  not  forget 
that  they  would  make  us  deaf  and  dumb,  and  that  we 
are  still  too  few  in  number  not  to  be  compelled  to  be  so. 
But  we  are  really  not  like  Rudin.  Rudin  is  intelligent, 
and  has  a  certain  quality  of  intellectual  perception,  but 
has  no  depth  of  soul ;  he  loves  no  one  and  no  thing.  He 
is  allured  by  the  beauty  of  ideas;  he  is  not  drawn  on 
by  true  and  earnest  love  for  the  human  race.  It  is  on 


62 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


this  account  that  he  is  a  failure  in  his  relation  to  Natha¬ 
lie,  and  especially  in  life,  even  if  he  does  not  succeed  as 
a  hero.  But,  great  God  !  —  do  not  believe  about  us  that 
we  are  a  failure  in  the  wearisome  battle  of  life,  which 
we  are  in,  day  in  and  day  out.  How  unjust !  my  strong 
and  living  faith  is  that  Russia  will  some  day  come  forth 
cured  of  its  political  disease,  and  disclose  itself  liberally 
and  manfully.  I  believe  not  only  in  the  Russian  people, 
but  I  believe  in  our  intelligent  youth,  in  their  recep¬ 
tiveness  of  everything  which  is  true  and  therefore 
beautiful.  It  betrays  itself  in  the  profound  respect  for 
the  men  who  understand  how  to  find  out  and  unveil  the 
meaning  of  things,  and  to  open  for  us  wider  horizons.’” 

There  is,  perhaps,  nothing  in  this  letter  indicative  of 
uncommon  abilities,  and  the  seventeen-year-old  child  is 
visible  behind  it ;  nevertheless,  there  is  a  personality  in 
it  which  may  be  typically  Russian,  and  which  it  would 
be  impossible  to  find  in  a  Scandinavian  girl  of  that  age, 
—  and  a  will  gleams  out  through  the  words,  flashing  like 
a  steel  blade,  a  will  which  is  full  of  promise. 

One  can  form  a  vivid  conception  of  this  progressive 
youth  of  both  sexes,  as  they  enter  upon  life,  face  to  face 
with  the  common  people,  whose  elevation  is  the  object  of 
their  aspirations. 

These  young  people  represent  the  highest  culture  of 
the  age ;  among  the  peasants  there  is  an  ignorance  which 
renders  it  almost  impossible  to  begin  the  communication 
of  information.  An  exiled  mathematician,  who  had  re¬ 
turned  from  Siberia,  a  very  practical  young  man,  told  me 
that  in  the  country  town  he  was  regarded  as  a  man  with 
a  supernatural  insight,  simply  on  account  of  his  large 
library ;  and  after  he  had  taught  some  peasants  there,  in 
the  spring,  how  to  graft  fruit-trees,  they  came  to  him 
the  next  day  from  the  whole  neighborhood  with  sick 


CR  ED  UL  O  US  COSSA  CKS. 


63 


children  and  sick  cattle,  and  besought  him  to  undertake 
a  general  cure :  “  Make  them  well,  little  father !  make 
them  well !  ”  When  he  assured  them  that  he  had  not  the 
power  to  do  it,  there  was  not  one  of  them  who  would 
believe  him.  They  begged,  cried,  asked  him  what  they 
had  done  to  him  that  he  would  not  help  them:  “You 
know  very  well  you  can,  if  you  will !  ” 

In  Benjamin  Constant’s  old  w'ork  on  Religion,”  it  is 
related  that  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  when  a 
Russian  general  in  full  uniform  rode  out  into  a  country 
town  in  a  part  of  Siberia  but  little  frequented,  he  was 
regarded  by  the  natives  as  God  himself,  and  that  the 
memory  of  his  appearance  got  such  a  firm  hold  among 
the  people  that  when  ten  years  later  a  Russian  colonel 
came  to  the  same  place  he  was  greeted  as  the  “  Son  of 
God.” 

That  would  hardly  be  possible  now.  Still,  the  follow¬ 
ing  happened  last  year.  A  cultured  Russian  passed 
through  a  town  inhabited  by  Cossacks  of  Little  Russia. 
He  was  asked  the  question :  “  Will  you  be  so  good  as 
to  tell  us  if  you  have  been  in  the  other  world  ?  ”  He 
was  offended,  since  he  supposed  that  the  inhabitants 
meant  to  indicate  to  him  that  they  did  not  believe  what 
he  had  said.  But  the  fact  was  that  one  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  town  had  returned  from  a  pilgrimage  and  had  told 
them  that  he  came  from  the  other  world,  and  those  re¬ 
cently  deceased  in  the  town  had  requested  him  to  bring 
greetings  to  their  relatives.  He  had  gone  away  again, 
loaded  with  rustic  presents,  to  the  departed  relatives  of 
the  credulous  Cossacks.  Now  they  wanted  to  find  out 
from  the  Russian  gentleman  whether  these  gifts  had 
reached  their  proper  destination. 

In  the  presence  of  such  ignorance  and  naivete  mutual 
understanding  is  difficult,  —  most  difficult,  perhaps,  be- 


04 


nrmEssioxs  of  Russia. 


cause  the  peasant  does  not  like  to  be  treated  as  children 
are  by  their  teachers.  As  a  matter  of  course,  he  does 
not  like  to  have  morals  preached  to  him.  When  an 
attempt  was  lately  made  on  an  estate  to  give  a  new 
drama  of  Tolstoi,  aimed  against  intoxicating  liquors,  and 
in  which  the  devil  personally  appears  as  the  maker  and 
distributer  of  spirits,  the  peasants  expressed  their  dis¬ 
gust  at  it.  It  was,  they  said,  a  tale  for  children. 

But  the  same  peasants  would  readily  believe  that,  if 
the  harvest  was  poor  this  year,  it  was  because  the  priests 
were  now  on  a  fixed  salary.  Heretofore  the  latter  said 
the  mass  earnestly,  to  get  a  good  harvest  and  rich  tithe  : 
this  year  it  was  all  the  same  to  them ;  therefore  they 
prayed  negligently  and  without  real  heartiness.  Drought 
followed.  And  the  same  peasants  explained  the  last  Rus- 
sian-Turkish  war  by  saying  that  in  the  country  of  the 
Turks  there  lies  in  the  ground  a  huge  beast,  of  great  age, 
and  under  the  claw  of  his  left  hind-leg  an  immense  treas¬ 
ure  of  gold  is  buried,  which  the  Tsar  wanted  to  wrest 
from  the  Turk. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  by  the  last  returns  sev¬ 
enty-six  out  of  one  hundred  of  the  soldiers  could  neither 
read  nor  write. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  examine  the  moral  idea  which 
underlies  the  whole  struggle  of  the  intelligent  people  of 
Russia :  The  wish  to  be  useful,  to  see  those  about  them 
happy  in  freedom.  This  idea  crops  out  in  many  differ¬ 
ent  guises,  now  in  the  costume  of  the  utilitarianism  of 
Bentham  and  Mill,  now  in  the  garb  of  Tchernuishevski's 
phalanstery,  now  in  Dostovevski's  strait-jacket,  but  it 
is  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  of  the  enlightened  reform¬ 
ers  of  the  fatherland  and  their  friends  of  reform. 

In  speaking  of  the  relations  of  the  two  sexes,  atten¬ 
tion  has  been  called  to  the  equality  between  the  man 


PEASANT  MAUI!  I A  GES. 


65 


and  woman,  and  to  the  greatest  possible  sum  of  human 
freedom  as  the  right  of  both.  On  this  point  we  can  com¬ 
pare  the  manner  of  thought  and  action  prevailing  among 
the  peasants.  External  considerations  are  almost  wholly 
excluded  from  the  marriage  question  in  this  class.  Xo- 
where  else  in  Europe  does  the  heart  play  so  small  a  role 
in  affairs  of  this  kind.  That  early  marriages  do  not  indeed 
of  themselves  bestow  the  happiness  of  love  is  shown 
here ;  for  as  a  rule  the  age  at  which  they  marry  is  eigh¬ 
teen  for  the  men  and  sixteen  for  the  women.  A  result 
of  the  extreme  youth  of  these  marriages  is  that  the  “  old 
man,”  the  head  of  the  family,  is  often  a  man  less  than 
forty  years  old  and  who  uses  to  the  full  extent  his  power 
and  the  respect  which  must  be  shown  to  him.  For  a 
long  time  past  he  has  sent  his  sons  into  the  fields  and 
been  at  home  alone  with  the  sons’  wives.  For  centuries 
he  has  gone  about  among  all  the  young  women  in  the 
house,  like  a  Turkish  sultan,  and  none  of  them  has  dared 
to  defy  him.  A  whole  range  of  Russian  national  songs 
treat  of  the  cane  of  the  father-in-law.  The  result  is  that 
the  Russian  peasant  never  has  treated  woman  as  man’s 
equal  helpmate.  The  proverbs  run  :  “  Love  your  wife  as 
your  own  soul  and  beat  her  like  your  fur !  ”  —  “  If  you 
cannot  thrash  your  wife,  whom  can  you  thrash  ?  ”  —  “  It 
is  my  wife  —  my  thing.”  —  Even  in  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury  the  father,  on  giving  his  daughter  in  marriage,  bought 
a  new  whip  to  give  her  the  last  domestic  discipline  coming 
from  him,  and  then  gave  it  solemnly  to  the  son-in-law, 
with  the  direction  to  use  it  early  and  unsparingly.  On 
entering  the  bridal  chamber,  the  ceremonial  custom  was 
for  the  bridegroom  to  give  his  bride  one  or  two  lashes 
over  the  shoulders,  with  the  words:  “Xow  forget  your 
father’s  will  and  suit  yourself  to  mine.”  The  national 
song,  nevertheless,  directs  him  to  take  a  “silken  whip.” 


66 


IMPRESSIOXS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Wliat  a  stride  it  is  from  this  to  the  conceptions  of  the 
youngest  generation  about  the  right  of  women  freely  to 
give  themselves  away  and  freely  recede,  and  their  ideas 
of  the  common  work  of  the  sexes  for  the  freedom  and 
happiness  of  the  masses  ! 

And  yet,  if  the  distance  is  enormous  between  these 
alert  and  sprightly  young  people  and  those  for  whom 
and  among  whom  they  would  labor,  the  contrast  between 
an  intelligentia  with  its  system  of  morals  and  the  official 
world  of  Russia,  which  holds  in  its  hands  the  whole  ad¬ 
ministration  and  all  the  material  means  of  the  country, 
is  not  less  immense. 

Here  is  an  intelligent  elite,  for  whom  the  rule  of 
ethics  is  not  the  official  patent  morality,  —  nay,  even  not 
the  legal  —  for  the  motto,  “  Nothing  unlawful,”  is,  for 
many  who  belong  to  it,  the  stamp  of  the  Philistine,  — 
but  for  whom  above  all  ethics  stands  that  which  they 
call  the  divine  spark, — this  spark  which  Dostoyevski 
traces  out  and  finds  even  in  criminals  and  the  partially 
insane,  and  for  whom  morality  is  what  they  call  “  the 
unconscious  condition,”  —  that  is,  that  in  which  the  indi¬ 
vidual  does  what  is  right  without  exertion,  without  self- 
conquest,  because  it  agrees  with  his  nature. 

Imagine  an  intelligentia  with  these  rules  of  ethics,  as 
a  spiritual  guiding  power  in  a  state  which  is  ruled  and 
governed  as  Russia,  —  where  the  most  ignorant  bigotry, 
in  the  darkest  of  the  Christian  creeds,  is  the  law  and 
fashion,  which  from  the  court  is  diffused  downwards,  and 
where  a  single  man's  will,  even  if  he  has  none,  is  the 
supreme  controlling  law. 

These  two  underlying  powers  are  drawing  away  from 
each  other  on  every  side.  What  does  it  lead  to  ?  Can 
any  mortal  draught  the  parallelogram  of  these  forces,  the 
resulting  tendency  and  its  course  ? 


GOGOL'S  APOSTROPHE. 


67 


We  are  reminded,  in  considering  it,  of  the  passage  in 
Gogol’s  “Dead  Souls,”  where  Tchitchikof’s  kibitka  is 
lost  in  the  distance,  driven  with  mad  haste,  — 

“  And  dost  not  thou,  Russia,  drive  away  like  a  troika, 
not  to  be  overtaken !  The  road  smokes  behind  thee,  the 
bridges  creak.  Thou  leavest  all  behind  thee.  The  be¬ 
holders,  amazed,  stop  and  say,  —  ‘Was  it  a  flash  of  light¬ 
ning  ?  what  means  this  blood-curdling  course  ?  what  is 
the  secret  power  in  these  horses  ?  What  kind  of  horses 
are  you  ?  have  you  whirlwinds  in  your  withers  ?  have 
you  recognized  tones  from  above,  and  do  you  now  force 
your  iron  limbs,  without  touching  the  earth  with  your 
hoofs,  to  fly  hence  through  the  air,  as  if  inspired  by  a 
God  ?  Russia,  answer  whither  thou  art  driving  ?  ’  There 
comes  no  answer.  We  can  hear  the  little  bells  on  the 
horses  tinkling  strangely ;  there  is  a  groaning  in  the  air, 
increasing  like  a  storm ;  and  the  Russian  land  continues 
its  wild  flight,  and  the  other  nations  and  kingdoms  of 
the  earth  step  timorously  aside,  without  checking  its 
career.” 


V. 


In-  the  spring  of  1887,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
poetic  debut  of  the  old  poet  Polonski  was  celebrated  in 
St.  Petersburg.  This  festival  offered  an  opportunity  of 
obtaining  a  glimpse  of  the  official  world,  and  of  becoming 
acquainted,  at  the  same  time,  with  many  of  the  literary 
and  artistic  celebrities  of  Russia. 

Yakof  Petrovitch  Polonski  (born  1820)  is  very  highly 
esteemed,  and  is  exceedingly  popular  as  a  lyric  poet. 
He,  Maikof,  and  Plestc.heyef  are  the  leading  living  lyric 
poets  of  Russia  of  the  older  generation.  The  last  (born 
1825),  like  Dostoyevski,  belonged  to  the  “  Petrashev- 
skians,”  who  were  sentenced  to  death  in  1849 ;  but,  by 
commutation  of  his  sentence,  he  was  sent  to  the  Ural 
and  put  into  the  Orenburg  battalion  of  the  line.  It  was 
not  till  1857  that  he  was  restored  to  his  rights  of  inher¬ 
itance  and  rank,  and  given  permission  to  reside  at  the 
capital  of  the  country.  Plestcheyef  to  this  day  belongs 
to  the  liberal  group  in  St.  Petersburg.  Polonski  and 
Maikof,  on  the  contrary,  have  a  close  connection  with 
the  government.  This  does  not  imply  that  they  have  at 
any  time  participated  in  politics  or  cherished  principles 
hostile  to  freedom ;  but,  since  they  are  both  men  of 
moderate  means,  and  it  is  just  as  impossible  in  Russia  as 
in  smaller  countries  to  live  as  a  lyric  poet,  even  by  the 
aid  of  an  occasional  novel,  the  government  endeavored 
to  improve  their  condition  by  giving  each  of  them  an 
office  in  the  censorship.  This  combination  of  lyric  poet 

68 


POLONSKI  ’  S  JUBIL  EE. 


69 


and  literary  censor,  which  is  so  tragi-comic  in  itself,  is 
decidedly  a  peculiarity  of  Russia.  In  any  other  country 
it  would  be  taken  for  granted  that  if  any  one  needed 
absolute  freedom,  it  would  be  a  lyric  poet,  and  that  if 
any  one  was  not  adapted  to  curtail  the  liberty  of  others, 
it  would  be  he. 

More  or  less  weakness  of  character  and  poverty  have 
united  to  bring  these  poets  to  the  point  of  receiving 
gratefully  the  bounty  of  the  government. 

Since  Polonski  was  censor  as  well  as  government 
officer,  it  could  be  anticipated  that  the  whole  official 
world  would  be  present  to  assist  at  his  jubilee.  Since 
he  was  to  be  honored  as  the  representative  of  belles- 
lettres,  it  was  not  less  certain  that  the  larger  number  of 
the  authors  in  St.  Petersburg  would  be  present.  In  fact, 
it  was  only  the  extreme  liberal  party,  of  which  the  re¬ 
views  Vyestnik  Yevropui  and  Sevyerni  J  yestnik  are  the 
rallying-points,  that  did  not  participate  in  the  festival. 
The  only  really  liberal  authors  who  were  present  sat, 
humorously  enough,  as  guests  —  one  even  as  an  honored 
guest  —  between  those  who  had  forbidden  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  their  books  and  prevented  the  delivery  of  their 
lectures. 

On  one  side  of  Polonski  sat  Vyshnegradski,  then  ad 
interim,  but  since  fully  constituted,  minister  of  finance, 
—  a  fine-looking,  elderly  man,  with  broad  shoulders,  but 
with  a  countenance  that  did  not  inspire  confidence  ;  and 
who,  prior  to  his  assuming  the  office,  had  been  somewhat 
criticised.  The  unthinking  mob,  which  in  Russia,  as 
elsewhere,  likes  to  throw  mud  at  anything  which  shines, 
had  set  the  following  absurd  report  in  circulation,  and  it 
obtained  general  currency,  though,  naturally,  no  credit : 
It  is  said  that,  on  his  appointment  as  minister,  he  was 
taken  to  the  Kazan  Church,  before  a  celebrated  image  of 


70 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


a  saint,  adorned  with  jewels,  and  there  was  obliged  to 
take  a  solemn  oath  that  the  treasury  of  the  state  should 
be  sacred  to  him.  He  took  the  oath  readily ;  but  by  a 
strange  accident,  it  is  added,  after  the  ceremony,  some 
diamonds  and  rubies  were  missing  from  the  vestments  of 
the  saint.  This  story  is  of  about  the  same  kind  as  the 
accounts  which  are  found  in  the  Russian  national  songs, 
—  of  how  the  Cossack  chief  Platof  pays  a  visit  to  the 
Emperor  Napoleon,  in  Paris,  disguised  as  a  merchant, 
gives  the  Frenchman  a  description  of  himself,  then  leaps 
upon  his  horse  and  rides  away  before  the  emperor’s  nose. 
But  the  story  is,  nevertheless,  indicative  of  the  suspicion 
which  the  continual  robbery  of  the  public  funds  by  offi¬ 
cials  has  created  among  the  people,  even  towards  men  in 
the  highest  places.  A  foreign  author,  who  had  described 
the  Russian  situation  in  Poland  as  that,  when  eighty 
thousand  rubles  were  appropriated  for  a  road,  forty 
thousand  must  go  into  the  pockets  of  the  officials,  re¬ 
peatedly  heard  in  St.  Petersburg  the  answer:  “Lucky 
fellows,  those  Poles,  if  it  is  really  the  case  there !  Since 
here,  when  eighty  thousand  rubles  are  appropriated  for  a 
road,  eighty  thousand  goes  into  the  pockets  of  the  offi¬ 
cials.” 

Since  the  Zemstvos  have  been  deprived  of  jurisdiction 
throughout  the  land,  it  would  seem  that  stealing  goes  on, 
regardless  of  consequences,  in  the  most  barefaced  man¬ 
ner.  It  appears  to  the  common  people  as  if  every  dis¬ 
order  on  the  part  of  the  officials  escaped  punishment  now 
more  than  ever  before. 

By  the  side  of  Vyshnegradski  sat  a  patron  of  litera¬ 
ture,  —  a  general  in  uniform,  with  a  face  as  red  as  a  lob¬ 
ster,  and  faience  eyes,  and  expressed  his  good  wishes  for 
lyric  and  novelistic  literature  of  the  right  kind  in  and 
out  of  Russia. 


HOMAGE  TO  POLONSKI. 


71 


Polonski,  who  was  placed  at  the  middle  of  the  left 
side  of  the  table  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  horse-shoe, 
is  a  tall  and  dignified  old  gentleman,  with  a  mild,  intel¬ 
lectual  countenance,  and  a  long,  white  beard.  His  hair, 
smoothly  combed  back,  has  still  preserved  its  dark  color. 
He  came  in  with  a'  cane  in  his  hand,  for  he  is  slightly 
lame ;  in  his  face  there  was  a  somewhat  uneasy  expres¬ 
sion  of  satisfaction  at  receiving  homage.  Later,  the 
expression  of  pleasure  at  the  consideration  which  was 
shown  him  broke  through  all  his  embarrassment.  There 
was  something  childlike  in  this  character,  —  stamped  by 
the  circumstances  under  which  it  had  been  developed,  and 
which  plainly  had  many  excellent  qualities.  The  friend¬ 
ship  with  which  Turgenief  continually  honored  him,  and 
which  does  honor  to  his  life,  could  not  otherwise  be  ex¬ 
plained.  (The  Vesnå  collection,  published  by  the  Danish 
author,  Thor  Lange,  contains  a  series  of  genial  letters 
from  Turgenief  to  Polonski.) 

Opposite  to  him  at  the  table  sat  his  brother  in  Apollo 
and  in  the  censorship,  Apollon  Nikolayevitch  Maikof, 
with  his  speech  under  his  arm,  with  his  long,  white  hair 
falling  down  as  German  professors  sometimes  wear  it,  a 
sharply  cut  countenance  with  a  pure,  strong  profile.  He 
rose  first  and  moved  a  little  away  from  the  table  and 
began  to  read  from  his  paper,  —  not,  as  elsewhere  is  the 
custom,  with  his  face  towards  the  company,  but,  as  was 
the  case  with  the  later  speakers,  turned  towards  the 
honored  guest,  so  that  those  who  would  hear  what  was 
said  must  gather  in  a  throng  about  him.  When  he  came 
to  the  statement  of  the  fact  that  the  Tsar,  in  honor  of 
the  day,  had  doubled  Polonski’s  salary  as  censor,  there 
was  loud  applause  from  all  directions,  and  with  surpris¬ 
ing  servility  came  shouts  of  “  The  hymn  !  the  hymn !  ” 
meaning  the  national  song.  They  all  rose  to  their  feet 


72 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  R  US  SI  A. 


and  sang  it.  Then  the  telegrams  were  read.  When 
Katkof’s  came,  it  was  received  with  demonstrations  ot 
shouts  and  applause,  —  and  a  silence,  not  less  significant, 
on  the  part  of  some.  When  these  shouts  of  joy  for  a  man 
whose  name  is  the  symbol  for  every  suppression  and 
reaction  in  the  interests  of  their  fatherland  were  heard, 
it  could  be  seen  that  in  this  hall  there  was  assembled  an 
extract  of  everything  in  Bussia  that  gags,  paralyzes,  and 
brags,  although  on  that  account  the  presence  of  many 
distinguished  and  finely  cultured  men  is  not  to  be  denied. 

Among  those  who  shook  their  heads  and  looked  in¬ 
quiringly  at  their  neighbors,  when  the  mention  of  Kat¬ 
kof’s  name  awaked  such  a  storm  of  applause,  was  the 
celebrated  Slavophile,  Orestes  Miller,  the  historian,  a 
small,  grizzled  man,  with  a  round  head,  animated  features, 
and  an  expression  of  sense  and  enthusiasm,  united  with 
the  conservatism  of  a  professor.  He  has  long  sought  to 
occupy  a  middle  standpoint  between  the  fanatical  Slavo¬ 
philes  of  the  Aksakovian  school,  who  see  an  original 
production  in  all  Bussian  works,  and  the  scholars  who 
investigate  in  the  European  methods,  like  Stasof,  who, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  question  about  the  subjects  of  the 
Bussian  epic  poems,  has  supported  the  view  that  all  this 
is  the  echo  of  tradition  which  a  long  time  previous  had 
been  spread  among  the  most  distant  nations  of  antiquity. 
Miller  has  written  a  valuable  essay  on  the  greatest  na¬ 
tional  hero  of  the  Ivief-cycle,  Ilia  of  Murom.  In  the 
more  modern  literature,  Dostoyevski  is  his  ideal,  and  he 
was  just  expounding  to  his  neighbor  at  the  table  the 
excellence  of  that  author’s  “  Karamazof  Brothers,”  when 
he  was  interrupted  by  the  shouts  for  Katkof.  He  little 
suspected  that  not  a  year  after  he  should  receive  his 
dismissal  from  his  professorship  at  the  University  at  St. 
Petersburg  because  in  two  introductory  lectures  in  sue- 


VSEVOLOD  GARSHIN. 


73 


cession  he  had  stamped  the  character  and  effect  of  the 
Katkofskian  re-action  as  injurious  to  Russia,  —  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  the  Tsar  himself,  in  a  letter  to  Katkof’s 
widow  just  after  his  death,  had  called  him  Russia’s  great¬ 
est  patriot. 

Not  far  from  him  sat  a  younger  man,  whom  love  of 
literature  alone  had  brought  into  this  circle,  a  wild  and 
free  bird  in  defiance  of  anybody,  Vsevolod  Garshin.  He 
was  strongly  built,  dark-haired,  with  the  stamp  of  a  self- 
educated  man.  He  rolled  his  eyes  about  in  a  strangely 
watchful  and  wild  manner :  he  had  had  repeated  attacks 
of  insane  melancholy,  and  fears  were  entertained  for  his 
future  condition.  On  no  one  did  the  reception  given  to 
Katkof  make  so  profound  an  impression  as  on  him.  But 
who  could  then  imagine  that,  not  many  months  later,  the 
almost  universal  servile  attitude  of  the  Russian  press  at 
the  death  of  Katkof  should  be  the  occasion  which  caused 
him  permanently  to  lose  control  over  his  faculties.  The 
panegyrics  over  a  man  whose  influence  he  regarded  as 
the  root  of  all  evil  in  the  new  era  of  the  Russian  Empire 
gave  a  shock  to  his  brain.  At  first  he  continually 
groaned,  —  “No,  I  should  never  have  believed  that  our 
press  was  despicable  to  that  extent,  to  that  extent  low- 
minded  :  —  What  shall  we  do  ?  what  shall  we  then  do  ?  ” 
And  again  and  again  he  broke  out  in  sobs.  After  that 
he  sat  for  half  a  year  in  his  black  melancholy,  and  wept 
continually.  When  he  was  asked  the  reason,  he  answered, 
“  I  weep  for  Russia.”  —  In  the  hope  of  causing  his  recov¬ 
ery,  the  directors  of  the  railroads,  by  which  he  was  em¬ 
ployed,  gave  him  a  leave  of  absence  and  the  means  to 
travel  south ;  but,  the  day  before  he  was  to  set  out,  the 
sick  man  put  an  end  to  his  life  by  throwing  himself  over 
the  stairs  from  the  upper  story  of  the  house  in  which  he 
lived  with  his  young  wife. 


74 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


After  Maikof,  a  stranger  to  Polonski,  who  happened, 
to  be  present,  spoke,  by  invitation,  and,  although  there 
was  nothing  in  the  speech,  received  hearty  applause.  It 
was  not  difficult  to  make  an  impression  of  eloquence 
here;  for  it  seems  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  advo¬ 
cates,  no  man  in  Russia  has  the  talent  of  speaking,  nor 
the  courage  to  try.  Not  a  single  Russian  arose  who  did 
not  have  his  speech  on  paper  in  his  hands,  and  who  did 
not  read  it.  Even  among  the  advocates,  there  are  not 
many  who  have  a  reputation  for  eloquence ;  perhaps  the 
best  known  are  Alexander  Passauvert,  “  the  great  advo¬ 
cate,”  Prince  Urussof,  Koni,  and  Utin.  Yet  it  is  sig¬ 
nificant  that  he  who  is  most  popular  and  makes  the 
most  money  is  the  Pole  Spasovitch,  author  of  the  volume 
which  treats  of  Poland  in  Pypin’s  great  work  about 
Slavic  literature.  It  is  certain,  in  any  case,  that  even  if 
in  Russian  Poland,  as  here,  all  public  and  political  life, 
which  are  indeed  the  natural  school  of  eloquence,  are 
wholly  prohibited,  yet  the  Poles  have  access  to  three 
parliaments  out  of  Russia;  and  their  natural  gifts,  from 
ancient  times,  lead  them  in  the  direction  of  weighing 
and  selecting  their  words.  One  will  seldom  hear  a  more 
eloquent  man  than  the  Pole  Joseph  Koscielski :  he  is  a 
member  of  the  Prussian  House  of  Lords  and  of  the 
German  parliament. 

Among  the  persons  present  at  the  festival  for  Polon¬ 
ski,  whose  acquaintance  a  foreigner  would  be  interested 
to  make,  the  old  lyric  poet  Pleshcheyef  must  also  be 
mentioned,  —  a  man  of  large  frame,  with  white  hair  and 
beard,  one  of  the  few  old  men  in  Russia  who  have  been 
true  to  the  convictions  of  their  youth;  and  Dostoyevski’s 
widow,  a  lady  between  forty  and  fifty  years  old,  with 
delicate,  regular  features,  who  must  have  appeared  to 
great  advantage  by  the  side  of  the  irregular,  plebeian, 


AIVA SO VSEI ' S  JUBILEE. 


75 


good-natured  physiognomy  of  her  husband.  An  uncom¬ 
fortable  husband  he  must  have  been,  even  less  fitted  for 
matrimony  than  poets  in  general,  and  fully  as  irregular 
as  any  one  to  whom  it  has  never  occurred  to  make  Ins 
books  a  series  of  arguments  for  mystical  religion  and 
pious  asceticism. 

A  short  time  after,  there  was  a  similar  festival  in 
jubilee-delighting  Russia,  with  speeches  and  telegrams, 
for  the  old  marine  painter  Aivasovski,  whom  they  would 
thank  for  “  having  raised  Russian  art  to  the  height  it 
now  occupies.”  Aivasovski  is  chiefly  indebted  for  his 
fame  to  the  fact  that  there  are  very  few  Russians  who 
have  thoroughly  known  the  ocean,  and  many  who  have 
never  even  seen  it.  None  of  them  were  qualified  to  crit¬ 
icise  or  sit  in  judgment  on  his  marine  views.  When  he 
was  young,  he  may  have  painted  some  fine  pictures ;  later, 
he  has  only  repeated  himself,  and  manufactured  his  sea- 
views  as  waffles  are  served,  —  hot  and  fresh  on  the  spot. 
Always  the  same  story ;  always  the  same  waves,  seen 
from  right  or  left,  in  sun  or  moonlight.  The  exhibition 
of  his  painting,  some  time  ago,  in  Copenhagen,  was  a 
fiasco  not  without  good  cause. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  jubilee,  he  responded  with  a 
dinner  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons ;  consisting  of 
those  who  had  been  present  at  the  festival  in  his  honor, 
the  whole  Academy,  the  Minister  of  Education,  the 
President  of  the  Synod,  the  Tsar’s  tutor,  Pobyedonostsef, 
and  others.  Each  guest  received  Aivasovski's  portrait, 
a  large  photograph,  representing  him  sitting  before  a 
canvas,  and  this  canvas,  one-fourtli  the  size  of  an  octavo 
page,  pasted  to  the  photograph,  was  a  painting  by  his 
own  hand.  In  this  manner  he  distributed  to  his  guests 
one  hundred  and  fifty  small  paintings :  waves,  ship¬ 
wrecks,  moonlight  effects  on  the  water.  The  rector  of 


76 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  university  delivered  a  long,  ineffably  silly  speech. 
He  said  that  the  Black  Sea  might  vanish  (be  dried  up  ?), 
but  the  memory  of  it  would  never  disappear ;  for  it  was 
immortalized  by  Aivasovski’s  paintings.  The  press,  on 
this  occasion,  was  represented  only  by  Suvorin,  the 
editor  of  Novo  ye  Vremya ,  as  the  other  newspapers 
had  been  unable  to  see  in  Aivasovski  an  artist  of  any 
rank. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  official  world  in  Bussia  is  doubt¬ 
less  no  worse  than  elsewhere.  The  spirit  of  deference, 
timid  snobbery,  and  arrogant  leaders  of  society  are  its 
characteristics  everywhere.  At  the  same  time,  perhaps 
the  lack  of  culture  and  the  natural  simplicity  is  even 
greater,  which  is  the  more  unfortunate  because  the 
higher  officials  in  Bussia  have  a  far  greater  uncon¬ 
trolled  range  of  power  than  in  any  other  European 
country. 

Bussia,  as  is  well  known,  is  divided  into  departments : 
Bussia  proper,  into  fifty ;  Poland,  into  ten ; — and  on  the 
frontier  three,  four,  and  five  of  them  are  placed  under 
one  governor-general.  In  addition,  the  largest  cities, 
like  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Ivharkof,  Odessa,  have 
governors-general,  who  possess  a  military  dictatorship. 
Until  the  abolition  of  serfdom,  in  1861,  the  governor  was 
the  absolute  ruler  in  his  department,  —  a  lesser  Tsar, 
over  about  a  million  and  a  half  inhabitants.  Since  then, 
the  situation  is  changed  only  to  the  extent  that  he  is  sur¬ 
rounded  by  a  group  of  heterogeneous  committees  of  con¬ 
trol.  But  the  whole  of  this  apparatus  is  of  extremely 
slight  practical  importance,  since  nearly  all  of  these 
committees  consist  of  officials  under  the  governor,  or  of 
other  officials  of  low  rank,  the  watchword  of  whose  life 
is  and  must  be  official  servility.  Instead  of  sharing  in 
the  governor’s  responsibility,  these  committees  dimin- 


EXILE  BY  ADMINISTRATIVE  PROCESS.  77 


ish  it,  without  limiting  the  full  extent  of  his  power 
to  any  perceptible  extent.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
read  Saltykov’s  gory  description  of  Russian  provin¬ 
cial  governors,  in  the  work,  “  Our  Pompadours,”  to 
get  an  idea  of  the  plane  of  intellectual  development 
which  these  men  occupy,  and  of  what  can  happen  any 
day. 

To  this  must  be  added  that,  even  since  the  legal 
reforms  of  1864,  the  governor  has  retained  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  reporting  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  the 
persons  whom,  “  in  the  interest  of  the  public  welfare,” 
he  desires  to  send  to  the  distant  provinces  of  the  empire 
by  the  administrative  process,  —  a  privilege  not  limited 
to  him,  since  “the  third  section  of  his  Majesty’s  private 
Department  of  Justice,”  the  secret  police,  who  have  the 
superintendence  both  of  the  officials  and  their  subor¬ 
dinates,  have  the  right,  without  judgment  or  evidence, 
to  send  to  prison  or  to  exile  every  one  who  is  suspected 
by  them.  How  is  it  possible  that  such  institutions 
should  not  bring  to  the  surface  all  that  is  evil  and 
cowardly,  hidden  away  in  human  nature,  in  those  who, 
at  the  same  time,  represent  the  machinery  of  state  and 
are  in  a  situation  to  place  others  under  its  wheels,  and 
must  themselves  continually  take  precautions  not  to 
share  the  same  fate  ? 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  are  Russian  officers  of  high 
rank  who,  from  their  judgment  and  humanity  or  from 
their  strong  sense  of  justice  and  plain  manner  of  proceed¬ 
ing,  understand  how  to  make  themselves  respected  in  the 
most  difficult  circumstances,  like  the  distinguished  Gov¬ 
ernor  of  Warsaw.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  scarcely 
be  any  doubt  that  the  Governor-General  of  Roland,  Gen¬ 
eral  Gurko,  possesses  very  few  qualifications  for  his  high 
office,  or  that  old  Prince  Dolgorukof,  Governor-General  of 


78 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Moscow,  discharges  his  duties  badly.  He  is  an  extremely 
obliging  and  polite  old  gentleman  to  foreigners,  and  yet 
he  has  a  stamp  of  shallowness  and  vanity,  which  makes 
a  painful  impression,  when  Ave  remember  that  the  Aveal 
and  Avoe  of  so  many  people  depend  on  the  state  of  his 
emotions  and  judgment.  That  he  has  many  friends 
among  the  rich,  conservative  merchants  of  the  city  Avas 
shoAvn  by  the  exhibition,  in  his  ante-chamber,  of  compli¬ 
mentary  presents, —  a  collection  of  costly  gifts  sent  to 
him  on  his  jubilee,  —  which  filled  one  great  case  after 
another.  But  Avhen  tact  and  magnanimous  forbearance 
are  demanded,  official  zeal  would  evidently  run  away 
with  him. 

An  incident  which  happened  in  the  autumn  of  1887 
plainly  showed  this.  A  concert  was  given  at  the  univer- 
sity,  in  which  an  orchestra  of  the  students  took  part.  In 
the  midst  of  a  solemn  pianissimo  passage,  the  sound  of 
two  blows  on  the  ear  were  heard.  It  was  a  student  who 
gave  them  to  Inspector  Brysgalof,  —  “an  impertinent 
camel,”  as  one  of  the  professors  called  him,  a  creature  of 
Katkof,  who  had  done  all  he  could  to  deserve  and  excite 
the  hatred  of  the  students.  The  Hoavs  were  accompanied 
by  the  words  :  “From  all  the  students.”  —  There  was  a 
general  commotion ;  the  police,  Cossacks,  all  were  called 
up  to  prevent  the  young  men  from  escaping  from  the 
university.  It  came  to  a  general  light :  many  students 
were  struck  and  wounded  in  the  courtyard,  Avhen  they 
resisted  arrest. 

The  Avhole  affair  was  taken  as  a  good  excuse  for  the 
authorities  still  further  tightening  the  reins  by  which 
the  young  men  at  the  university  are  driven.  Ho  less 
than  eighty-six  students  Avere  exiled  on  this  account  by 
Prince  Dolgorukof.  What  remained  after  this  kind 
of  a  thorough  purification  were  the  extreme  conserva- 


CONSERVATIVE  STUDENTS. 


79 


tives,  who  are  more  autocratic  than  the  government 
itself,  who  lament  from  the  bottom  of  their  souls  the 
liberation  of  the  serfs,  and  who,  according  to  circum¬ 
stances,  mix  a  dose  of  Slavophilism  or  of  Panslavism  in 
their  way  of  looking  at  political  life. 


VI. 


In  Russia,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  not  the  official  world  with 
which  the  foreigner  has  the  greatest  desire  to  become 
acquainted.  He  seeks  in  every  large  city,  as  soon  as 
possible,  to  be  introduced  to  those  whom  the  inhabitants 
themselves  regard  as  the  elite.  As  I  have  elsewhere  ex¬ 
pressed  it :  There  is  always  a  great  difference  between 
the  tea  which  the  Chinese  drink  and  that  which  is  sold 
throughout  the  rest  of  the  world.  He  who  is  fond  of 
tea  will  in  every  China  seek  for  the  tea  drunk  by  the 
natives. 

The  foreigner,  who,  after  having  become  acquainted 
with  one  Slavic  race,  comes  to  another,  soon  sees  that,  in 
order  to  understand  the  new  race  thoroughly,  he  must 
make  use  of  the  one  already  known  as  a  standard  of 
comparison.  For  only  thus  can  he  find  the  resemblance, 
without  which  all  comparison  is  meaningless.  By  com¬ 
parison  with  the  qualities  of  the  intellectual  aristocracy 
in  Warsaw  could  the  peculiarities  of  the  most  advanced 
and  interesting  persons  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  be 
grasped  in  their  delicacy.  The  Russians  have  very  few 
qualities  in  common  with  the  Scandinavians  and  the 
Germans ;  and  even  with  the  Finns,  who  live  under  the 
same  rule,  and  generally  use  the  same  language,  there  is 
hardly  any  similarity.  The  attitude  of  Finland  to  Russia 
has  been  admirably  compared  to  that  of  an  honest,  quiet 
tradesman,  who  has  lived  sensibly  but  monotonously  and 
a  little  tediously,  to  that  of  a  rollicking  student,  at  one 

80 


RUSSIAN  AND  POLISH  PECULIARITIES.  81 


time  dissolute  and  then  famished,  ready  for  all  sorts  of 
follies,  but  also  for  business,  and  who  is  always  thinking 
more  of  the  problem  of  human  life  than  of  the  rent  he 
has  to  pay.  The  capital  of  Finland,  in  spite  of  the  differ¬ 
ences  and  battle  of  the  languages  and  what  revolves 
about  it,  on  a  flying  visit  makes  a  predominating  Scandi¬ 
navian  impression  on  a  foreigner.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  a  large,  free,  cosmopolitan  culture  is  found  among  the 
best  educated  Finns,  partly  owing  to  their  close  connec¬ 
tion  with  a  power  of  the  world  which  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  to  find  in  a  place  of  the  same  size  in  a  Scan¬ 
dinavian  country.  Nevertheless,  frivolity,  slander,  and 
philistinism  flourish  here,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  North. 
There  is  no  real  standpoint  of  comparison  with  Russia 
to  be  found  here. 

With  Poland  it  is  entirely  different.  Nay,  the  simi¬ 
larity  at  first  sight  is  so  striking  that  it  overshadows  the 
dissimilarities,  and  conceals  the  Russian  peculiarities. 
But,  in  order  to  find  it,  we  must  begin  by  eliminating  all 
the  traits  which  the  Poles  and  Russians  have  in  common. 

In  this  way  we  naturally  approach  the  qualifications 
which  have  any  precise  character ;  but  they  are  not  so 
insignificant  as  they  may  seem.  The  common  observer 
sees  no  difference  between  the  cultured  classes  of  the 
European  nations.  As  he  moves  among  these  people, 
who  are  everywhere  dressed  in  the  same  manner,  and 
who  everywhere  observe  the  same  rules  of  life  and  of 
politeness,  they  seem  to  him  the  same ;  and  even  if  he 
thinks  he  discovers  some  differences,  they  seem  in  reality 
to  be  purely  accidental.  On  the  other  hand,  he  who  is 
inclined  to  critical  comparison,  and  is,  therefore,  accus¬ 
tomed  to  discriminate  between  essential  and  unessential 
qualities,  typical  and  accidental  traits,  and  is  skilled  in 
tracing  the  individual  propensities  back  to  the  national, 


82 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


and  these  again  to  the  characteristics  of  the  race,  will 
always  he  on  the  alert  to  avoid  hasty  generalizations : 
he  looks  through  the  skin,  hears  through  the  word,  and 
constantly  corrects  one  impression  by  the  aid  of  another. 
If,  for  instance,  he  would  give  his  impressions  of  a  great 
capital,  like  Berlin  or  Warsaw,  then  perhaps  for  months 
he  would  fasten  his  eyes  on  lists  of  hundreds  and  hun¬ 
dreds  of  men  and  women  whom  he  has  known,  while  he 
constantly  points  out  their  characteristics  to  himself, 
compares  these  with  each  other  and  with  characteristics 
of  a  like  number  of  individuals  of  other  nations,  to  tind 
out  the  most  fundamental  traits  and  the  common  charac¬ 
teristics.  It  is  thus  that  the  natural  scientist  finds  by 
comparison  the  constituent  qualities  of  the  different 
kinds  of  animals. 

At  every  single  personality,  every  single  trait,  or  every 
group  of  traits,  which  is  observed,  we  must  ask  ourselves, 
“  Could  not  this  be  found  outside  of  Bussia  ?  ”  After 
that  which  is  common  to  the  human  race  has  been  deter¬ 
mined,  then  that  which  is  common  to  the  Slavic  races, 
then  that  which  the  aristocracy  or  peasants  in  all  coun¬ 
tries  have  in  common,  then  comes  the  investigation  into 
that  which  is  peculiarly  national. 

In  the  first  conversations,  the  foreigner  will  scarcely 
find  the  men  who  pass  for  the  most  clever  in  Bussia 
cleverer  than  those  who  are  regarded  as  the  most  gifted 
in  Warsaw ;  and  he  is  more  likely  to  find  them  less 
gifted. 

The  essential  trait,  to  which  attention  is  called  earli¬ 
est,  is,  without  doubt,  that  the  chief  interests  of  the 
Bussians  are  modern.  The  chief  interests  in  Warsaw 
are  not  of  this  kind,  as  there  Poland  —  a  historic  thing, 
the  dream  about  a  past  which  shall  be  made  into  a 
future  —  absorbs  the  thoughts  of  the  best  people.  In 


RUSSIA’S  INTERESTS  MODERN. 


83 


Russia  hardly  anything  relating  to  the  past  is  thought 
about.  Within  the  Russian  intelligentia  the  historic 
sense  is  even  perceptibly  weak.  Peter  the  Great,  even, 
had  done  his  part  to  saw  it  off,  or  rather  to  pluck  it  up 
by  the  roots.  That  the  men  of  revolutionary  ideas  of 
Russia  lack  it,  is  in'  part  because  the  modern  founders 
of  the  empire  had  shaped  its  tendency  in  the  direction 
of  the  present,  —  the  newest,  as  the  only  thing  at  hand. 
To  this  extent  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  father  of  the 
so-called  nihilism ;  and  the  Slavophiles  have  thus  one 
more  reason  for  regarding  him  with  ill  will  and  horror. 

The  Russian  intelligence,  moreover,  is  less  unhappily 
situated  than  the  Polish,  because  it  is  not  hemmed  in  by 
any  foreign  and  hostile  nationality.  It  has  connections 
in  the  official  circle  —  nay,  quite  up  in  the  family  of  the 
Tsar ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  so  denationalized  as  it  was 
in  the  first  ten  years  of  the  century. 

For  example,  the  young  Duke  George  Alexander  (of 
Mecklenburg),  son  of  the  Princess  Imperial  Katharina 
Mikhailovna,  grandson  of  the  celebrated  Princess  Impe¬ 
rial  Helen,  and  permeated  with  traditions  from  the  time 
of  his  grandmother,  is  not  infrequently  met  in  liberal 
circles.  Although  he  is  a  prince  of  the  imperial  family, 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  make  the  first  call  on  a  foreigner 
who  does  not  belong  to  the  nobility,  if  he  thinks  that 
the  acquaintance  would  be  of  any  advantage  to  him. 
He  is  a  young  man  of  large  and  sound  culture,  with 
many  interests.  A  more  unconventional  officer  than  he 
would  probably  be  sought  for  in  vain  in  the  Russian 
army.  His  mother’s  palace  in  St.  Petersburg,  by  its  size, 
reminds  one  of  Ghristianborg  in  Copenhagen.  She  is 
also  the  owner  of  large  estates  in  different  parts  of 
Russia,  and  the  young  prince  impresses  one  as  being 
well  acquainted  with  Russia.  He  is  polished,  quiet,  and 


84 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


intelligent ;  his  manners  present  an  attractive  mingling 
of  German  solidity  and  Russian  intellectual  freedom. 
He  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  how  the  intellectual 
currents  which  are  blended  in  the  highest  circles  of 
Russia  in  our  time  result  in  a  half  cosmopolitan,  half 
national  culture. 

His  grandfather,  the  Prince  Imperial  Mikhail,  and  his 
elder  brother,  Nicholas,  were  taught  by  the  well  known 
Swiss,  Cæsar  La  Harpe,  the  same  person  who  had  pre¬ 
viously  been  the  tutor  of  Alexander  the  First,  and  in 
their  schoolboy  days  received  a  thorough  course  in  the 
liberal  culture  of  the  eighteenth  century.  So  completely 
were  the  young  imperial  princes  to  be  educated  without 
regard  to  the  traditions  of  Christianity,  that,  as  is  shown 
by  the  memoirs  (edited  by  Durof)  prepared  for  the  Tsar- 
itsa  Katharina  describing  the  methods  of  instruction 
adopted  by  La  Harpe,  the  following  was  taught  to  them 
as  to  the  founder  of  the  Christian  religion:  “Jesus, 
surnamed  the  Christ,  a  Jew,  from  whom  the  Christian 
sect  takes  its  name.” 1  The  young  imperial  princes, 
however,  were  forced  by  the  tediousness  of  their  teacher 
to  let  the  philosophy  he  taught  them  go  in  at  one  ear 
and  out  at  the  other,  and  to  employ  all  their  leisure 
hours  in  the  drill  yard,  where  the  beating  of  drums  and 
the  parades  were  their  chief  delight.  Mikhail,  who  had 
some  mathematical  talent,  became  a  zealous  artillery 
officer,  and  still  was  no  more  absorbed  in  the  peculiarly 
military  problems  than  in  the  arts  and  sciences  of 
peace.  He  would  have  readily  given  utterance  to  his 
older  brother’s  memorable  sentence,  “  I  detest  war :  it 
spoils  the  armies.”  2  Reviews  and  parades,  orders  and 

1  Jésus,  surnommé  le  Christ,  jirif,  dont  la  secte  des  Chrétiens  tire  le 
nom. 

2  Je  diteste  la  guerre :  die  gate  les  armies. 


HELENA  PAVLOVNA. 


85 


epaulets,  were  everything  to  him  in  his  youth.  When 
Nicholas  became  Tsar,  from  enthusiastic  zeal  for  his 
authority,  he  excluded  his  brother  from  every  position 
whatever,  that  was  in  the  slightest  degree  influential ; 
and,  from  indignation  at  this,  the  latter  on  all  occasions 
expressed  himself  in  bitter  derision  about  his  surround¬ 
ings,  sneering  at  everything  and  everybody,  with  the 
reckless  irony  of  a  discontented  man. 

It  was  to  this  man  that  in  the  last  year  of  the  life  of 
Alexander  I.  (1824)  the  young  Princess  of  Wiirtemberg, 
who  on  being  received  into  the  Greek  Church  took  the 
name  Helena  Pavlovna,  was  married.  During  the 
twenty-five  years  of  her  married  life,  she  was  compelled 
to  suppress  all  her  interests,  and  to  be  apparently 
absorbed  in  court  festivals,  audiences,  and  tedious  drives, 
and  dared  to  occupy  herself  with  reading  and  music  and 
to  enjoy  the  society  of  artists  and  scientists  only  during 
the  time  which  etiquette  dealt  out  as  sparingly  as  possible. 
At  the  age  of  forty-five  she  was  a  widow,  and  seemingly 
lived  some  years  only  for  her  daughter  Katharina 
Mikhailovna  and  the  children  whom  the  latter  had  from 
her  marriage  with  the  somewhat  bigoted  re-actionist, 
Duke  George  of  Mecklenburg-Strelitz.  At  the  death  of 
the  Czar  Nicholas,  a  new  epoch  was  begun  in  her  life, 
and  she  opened  her  palace  to  everything  intellectual  to 
be  found  in  the  different  parties  in  St.  Petersburg.  The 
leaders  not  only  of  the  Slavophile,  but  of  the  liberal 
party  frequented  her  house.  Conversation  there  was 
spirited  and  without  restraint.  The  mistress  of  the 
house  was  still  handsome,  and  she  liked  to  see  fine-look¬ 
ing  men  about  her.  Her  household  contained  only 
handsome  men,  among  them  Abaza,  afterwards  Minister 
of  Finance.  She  also  patronized  the  distinguished 
vocalist,  who  afterwards  became  the  wife  of  the  latter, 


86 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


and  now  as  J ulia  Feodorovna  Abaza  is  one  of  the  ladies 
in  waiting  at  her  daughter’s  court.  By  the  side  of  the 
politicians  of  the  different  shades,  artists  and  scien¬ 
tists,  Russian  and  foreign,  had  free  access  to  her  house. 
For  a  long  time  it  was  the  custom  that  distinguished 
artists  or  scholars  who  came  to  St.  Petersburg  took  up 
their  residence,  by  her  invitation,  in  the  beautiful  pal¬ 
ace  at  Mikhailof  Square.  She  had  lost  the  power  of 
continuous  activity  or  work  during  that  long  period  of 
her  life  when  her  whole  existence  had  been  absorbed  by 
the  etiquette  of  the  old  court.  But  interest  in  and  love 
of  knowledge  was  fresh  in  her  to  the  last. 

It  is  her  inheritance  which  Katharina  Mikhailovna’s 
heir  has  entered  upon  with  greater  earnestness  and 
penetration  in  spite  of  his  youth  and  in  spite  of  his 
oppressive  situation  under  the  existing  Russian  rule.1 

A  point  like  this  makes  one  feel  sharply  the  distance 
from  Russian  Poland,  where  no  thread  from  the  world  of 
intelligence  reaches  completely  within  the  court  circles. 

At  the  present  time  there  is  no  central  salon  in 
St.  Petersburg.  Formerly,  Countess  Aleksei  Tolstoi 
formed  such  a  centre.  The  widow  of  the  celebrated 
poet,  one  of  the  most  cultivated  women  in  Russia,  is  now 
an  elderly  woman  and  docs  not  longer  desire  to  attract 
society.  Among  the  advanced  Russians  it  is  the  style 
nowadays  to  answer  questions  relating  to  that  subject 
with  :  “  A  salon  !  a  circle  !  an  intellectual  aristocracy  ! 
Really,  what  do  you  expect  ?  There  is  nothing  of  the 
kind  here.  The  house  where  you  live  is  an  oasis.  All 
around  it  is  a  desert.”  —  And  if  you  ask  for  their  great 
men,  where  they  are  to  be  found  and  seen,  the  answer 
readily  slips  out :  “  I  don’t  know  them ;  I  have  never 

1  Comp.  (Julius  Eckhardt):  ^Ims  der  Petersburger  Gesellscha/t, 
5tli  ed.,  p.  30  and  following. 


SELF-DEPUECIA  TION. 


87 


heard  of  them.  We  are  perhaps  in  advance  of  the  Ger¬ 
mans  in  this  one  thing,  that  we  do  not  have  great  men 
like  them.  We  lack  a  Felix  Dahn,  a  Gustav  Freytag, 
and  Julius  Wolff,  and  so  on.  We  do  not  have  the  solid 
and  learned,  earnest  men,  who  on  the  other  side  of  the 
frontier  write  novels  in  four  volumes,  and  historical 
works  in  fifteen.  There  is  an  utter  want  of  that  kind 
of  genius  among  us.  We  have  not  even  the  Prussian 
Feldwebel  with  clinched  fists,  in  whom  our  neighbors 
see  the  new  Pericles.  He  is  deeply  indebted  to  us.  The 
stupidity  of  our  statesmen  is  his  genius.  To  that  extent 
you  can  find  his  genius  here.” 

This  trait  of  depreciating  and  speaking  ironically 
about  themselves  is  of  very  frequent  occurrence  among 
the  progressive  Russians,  more  frequently  than  among 
the  Poles  of  the  present  time,  and  united  with  an  irony 
pointed  at  foreign  self-conceit,  which  it  is  difficult  to 
find  elsewhere. 

Just  as  the  Russians,  as  a  rule,  do  not  extol  the  ge¬ 
niality  or  the  industry  of  their  countrymen,  so  also  the 
more  refined  and  more  sceptical  among  them  glorify  just 
as  little  their  intellectual  powers  or  their  trustworthiness. 
“  Look  out  for  a  Russian,”  you  will  hear  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  :  “he  has  more  imagination  than  intellect,  and  more 
intellect  than  moral  sense.”  This  is  hardly  true  about 
the  common  people  of  Great  Russia,  whose  quick  appre¬ 
hension,  constancy  in  work,  and  perseverance  in  adversity, 
are  crowned  by  the  most  meritorious  virtue,  —  a  great 
gentleness,  —  and  who,  however  credulous  they  may 
be,  and  however  easily  on  that  account  they  may  be 
frightened  for  the  moment,  still  have  an  equipoise  in 
their  nature,  a  consistency  in  their  method  of  thought, 
and  a  quiet  courage,  which  makes  them  composed  and 
steady  in  times  of  danger. 


88 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  It  US  SI  A. 


Among  the  cultivated  Russians,  on  the  contrary,  the 
foreigner  will  often  enough  meet  with  instability  and 
capriciousness,  of  which  the  young  men  of  Turgenief 
afford  so  many  examples.  Little  traits  which  illustrate 
it  will  be  at  his  service  by  the  scores  :  — 

A  young  Russian  sees  a  young  Englishwoman  on  a 
public  promenade  in  Heidelberg.  He  does  not  rest  until 
he  has  won  her,  and  she  gives  him  her  hand.  They 
come  to  Russia.  He  has  little  property  and  does  not 
care  to  work  to  any  extent.  He  has  hardly  passed  the 
honeymoon  before  he  declares  that  there  is  no  conge¬ 
niality,  no  affinity  to  be  found  between  him  and  his  wife. 
They  then  live  in  different  cities  :  he  amuses  himself  as 
well  as  he  can  in  St.  Petersburg ;  she  remains  in  Schlis¬ 
selburg,  educates  her  daughter,  in  the  English  style,  to 
independence,  lives  constantly  in  recollection  of  her 
husband.  He  amuses  himself,  travels,  as  a  choice  lies 
in  a  boat  on  the  Black  Sea  and  dreams.  He  is  now 
forty  years  old  and  has  not  yet  found  his  career.  He 
has  for  a  long  time  been  a  farmer,  but  wishes  to  change 
his  occupation  and  become  an  advocate. 

Is  not  that  Russian  ?  asks  the  foreigner.  It  is  human, 
and  common  to  the  Slavs.  A  Pole  has  certainly  not 
very  infrequently  done  about  the  same.  A  Frenchman 
might,  I  dare  say,  become  tired  of  an  Englishwoman, 
but  would  hardly  enter  upon  a  new  career  at  forty.  A 
German  would  apply  for  a  divorce,  remain  at  his  trade, 
and  immediately  marry  again.  It  is  Slavic,  it  is  true, 
but  hardly  peculiarly  Russian. 

“  Tell  me  your  family  drama,”  says  the  foreigner  to 
his  Russian  acquaintances.  They  tell  a  story  like  this : 
There  were  two  brothers  L.,  of  the  aristocracy,  one 
married  but  childless.  His  wife  becomes  enceinte,  and 
informs  her  husband  that  his  brother  is  the  father  of  the 


SOCIETY  MORALS. 


89 


child.  A  duel  between  the  two  brothers  follows,  in 
which  blood  is  spilt,  but  no  one  killed.  The  wife  leaves 
her  husband,  who  is  living  and  has  lived  with  a  ballet- 
dancer,  marries  the  brother,  and  by  him  has  a  large 
number  of  children.  The  fathers  and  mothers  in  law  are 
delighted.  They  immediately  received  the  newly  mar¬ 
ried  pair  with  open  arms,  and  society  approves  of  what 
has  been  done.  Is  this  Russian,  or  not  ? 

That  which  is  specially  Russian  must  be  the  content¬ 
ment  and  tolerance  of  the  fathers  and  mothers  in  law. 

Professor  T.  of  the  University  became  infatuated  with 
a  lady  who  was  married  to  one  of  his  colleagues.  He 
moved  into  the  same  apartments  with  Mrs.  M.  They 
had  both  their  names  on  the  door,  each  received  in  their 
rooms,  and  were  invited  everywhere  together. 

This  is  more  characteristic.  In  the  capitals  of  other 
countries  marriage  would  have  been  essential. 

Baroness  L.  was  first  married  to  a  young,  fine-looking 
man,  who  held  a  high  official  position,  left  him  to  marry 
his  superior  officer,  who  was  thirty  years  older  than  her¬ 
self.  Since  this  marriage  she  for  some  years  travelled 
about  with  a  young  Austrian  count  of  a  celebrated 
family,  then  ‘came  back  to  Russia,  while  her  husband  by 
his  official  situation  is  tied  in  Madrid.  In  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  she  has  a  young  artist  living  in  her  house,  sees  a 
young  poet  every  day,  shows  a  lively  sympathy  for  sev¬ 
eral  other  men,  and  is  not  the  less,  after  some  hesitation 
on  the  part  of  society,  received  everywhere,  being  still 
young  and  remarkably  pretty.  She  drives  to  a  ball 
at  the  house  of  the  minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  sits 
there  dressed  as  a  gypsy  queen,  with  a  gold  ring  on  her 
forehead,  takes  an  active  part  in  the  social  life  of  the 
highest  circles,  and  makes  eyes  to  the  young  gentlemen. 
The  next  day  she  sits  clothed  in  a  simple  woollen  dress, 


90 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


without  ornaments,  knitting  a  stocking  in  a  garret  with 
a  poor  gray-haired  lady,  who  knows  the  addresses  of  all 
the  exiled,  and  takes  care  of  money  sent  to  them.  She 
writes  a  novel  for  a  prominent  French  periodical,  about 
interesting  countesses  from  Russian  high  life,  who  fall 
and  rise  again,  and  she  writes  pamphlets  at  one  kopek 
for  the  collection  of  popular  writings  in  Moscow.  She 
stands  on  almost  confidential  footing  with  several  young 
men  of  the  radical  wing  of  the  liberal  party ;  but  on  still 
more  confidential  footing  with  the  prefect  of  police  of  a 
great  city,  through  whom  she  can  and  does  obtain 
pardons  in  large  numbers. 

This  combination  ought  not  to  exist  outside  of  Russia. 

Nicholas  Y.,  a  very  well  educated  young  man,  had 
revolutionary  tendencies  in  the  sixties.  A  young  girl, 
very  handsome  and  enthusiastic,  fled  out  of  the  country 
with  him.  She  was  then  a  Nihilist,  had  taken  part  in 
commotions  of  the  students,  accompanied  him  from 
place  to  place  —  “  civilly  married  ”  to  him,  as  she  called 
it,  which  means  in  Russia  not  married  at  all.  They  went 
to  London.  When  they  returned,  in  1878,  both  were 
changed.  He,  a  capitalist,  re-actionist,  working  to  get 
exorbitant  railroad  grants  in  Bulgaria.  She,  exclusive, 
formal,  an  Anglomaniac,  correct  and  strikingly  dressed, 
with  several  diamond  ornaments  on  a  dress  of  black 
velvet.  It  would  not  have  been  believed  that  they  had 
ever  led  a  life  of  independent  and  rebellious  ideas  and 
emotions.  On  his  death  some  years  after,  it  is  said  that 
she  found  among  his  papers  several  which  placed  his 
character  in  a  light  of  which  she  had  never  dreamed, 
and  which  was  unfavorable  to  her.  Then  she  had 
another  transformation,  sought  the  most  extreme  liberal 
circles,  and  has  now  wholly  devoted  herself  to  the  litera¬ 
ture  and  politics  of  the  progressives,  declares  that  she  is 


RUSSIAN  INCONSTANCY. 


91 


living  her  youth  over  again,  because  she  believes  that  in 
the  present  times  she  finds  once  more  the  vigorous 
impulses  from  the  sixties. 

This  inconstancy,  which  emanates  from  the  very 
receptive  nature  of  the  cultivated  Russian,  is  less  sur¬ 
prising  than  elsewhere,  and  is  accepted  by  the  customs 
of  the  country. 

This  class,  moreover,  in  the  higher  stratum  of  society 
also  not  infrequently  manifests  a  certain  cynicism  in  the 
presence  of  breaches  of  the  “  civil  ”  rules  to  be  found 
elsewhere,  only  among  Bohemians. 

Critic  F.  reads  aloud  in  company  an  article  about  M.’s 
poems.  M.,  who  enjoys  a  certain  prestige  as  a  lyric  poet, 
is  a  small,  robust,  thick-set  man,  about  thirty  years  old, 
with  a  dark  Jewish-Mongolian  countenance,  a  kindly, 
attractive  smile,  and  rather  embarrassed  demeanor.  His 
poems  are  ponderous,  rich  in  sentences,  and  belong  to  a 
kind  of  lyric  usually  characterized  as  deep.  The  critic 
positively  overwhelmed  the  absent  poet  with  his  piaise. 
In  bombastic,  incoherent  prose,  he  extolled  the  wonder¬ 
ful  beauties,  which  were  not  to  be  found  in  reading  the 
poems  through  the  first  time.  The  comic  aspect  of  the 
situation  was  that  Mrs.  M.,  who  was  divorced  the  pre¬ 
vious  year,  is  present,  listens  to  the  panegyrics  upon  her 
ex-husband,  and  by  the  side  of  him  she  now  prefers 
expressed  to  the  author  of  the  article  her  objections  to 
his  view  of  the  subject. 

One  must  go  to  the  South  German  circles  of  actors  and 
authors  to  find  anything  like  this.  That  which  bears 
the  special  Russian  stamp  on  it  is  perhaps  that  no  one  in 
the  company  seems  to  find  anything  out  of  the  way  in 
it.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  Russia  that,  when  a  marriage 
tie  is  dissolved,  it  is  generally  the  wife  who  desires  to 
enter  upon  a  new  union,  and  very  often  the  husband,  in 


92 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


order  to  make  this  possible  for  her,  assumes  the  blame, 
so  that  a  divorce  may  be  decreed,  although  he  thereby 
makes  it  impossible  to  be  married  again  himself.  The 
following  is  a  case  which  happened  last  year :  an  esti¬ 
mable  and  finely  educated  advocate,  who  was  married  to 
a  young  princess,  received  the  confession  from  her  that 
she  was  in  love  with  an  officer  of  the  guard.  He 
declared  himself  to  be  the  guilty  party,  and  she,  by 
reason  of  this  accommodation,  not  very  easy  for  him, 
married  her  lover  without  impediment. 

These  glimpses  of  fundamental  traits  from  the  St. 
Petersburg  family  dramas  shape  themselves  into  a  typ¬ 
ical  picture.  But  the  peculiarities  are  brought  into  the 
clearest  light  when  we  compare  prominent  Bussian 
individuals  of  the  higher  circles  with  prominent  Poles 
of  the  same  class. 

The  typical  Polish  nobleman  of  our  time  is  a  grand 
gentleman  whose  practical  interests  are  agricultural, 
whose  diversions  are  amusements  and  the  theatre, 
whose  intellectual  interests  are  concentrated  in  the 
advancement  of  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  Church 
and  thereby  of  the  Polish  aristocracy.  To  him  the 
Church  is  the  precious  pledge  of  the  nationality,  and  in 
his  mind  the  aristocracy  stands  as  the  indispensable 
leader  of  the  nation.  He  publishes,  at  his  own  expense, 
some  old  national  work,  he  subsidizes  the  national  thea¬ 
tre  in  Posen  or  the  Polish  press  in  Warsaw,  enters  into 
alliance  with  Eome  and  with  the  Jesuits,  — that  is,  if  he 
is  a  zealous  Conservative  and  a  zealous  Pole.  Otherwise, 
he  only  thinks  of  amusing  himself,  lives  for  the  ballet, 
never  misses  a  horse  race,  marries  the  daughter  of  some 
rich  Jewish  banker  to  gild  his  tarnished  coat  of-arms, 
and  then  continues  the  life  of  his  youth  with  greater 
dignity  and  fewer  creditors.  He  never  does  any  real 


A  TYPICAL  RUSSIAN. 


93 


work.  The  old  aristocratic  disdain  and  aversion  for 
labor  exist  to  this  day  unchanged  in  Poland.  A  young 
Polish  nobleman  who  works  is  cited  everywhere  as  a 
phoenix. 

It  is  quite  different  in  Russia.  In  the  aristocracy 
here,  for  the  most  part,  the  broad-shouldered,  persistent 
muzhik  shines  out. 

Here  is  a  type  :  He  is  of  a  princely  family ;  that  is  to 
say,  he  belongs  to  one  of  the  only  half  a  hundred  Rus¬ 
sian  families  who  are  of  real  princely  blood,  because 
they  are  descended  from  the  old  rulers  of  the  country. 
He  has  inherited  hardly  any  property.  Without  any 
trace  of  the  Ranudo-like  1  disinclination  to  work,  which 
is  the  characteristic  of  the  Polish  nobleman,  he  studies 
engineering  first  in  Russia,  then  in  Germany ;  on 
his  return  goes  to  work  with  an  axe  in  his  hand, 
builds  bridges,  and  lays  out  railroads,  at  first  in  the 
employment  of  others,  and  afterwards  on  his  own 
account.  Not  that  he  loves  work  on  its  own  account. 
As  a  practical  Russian,  he  means  to  become  rich,  very 
rich.  He  becomes  a  manufacturer,  gives  up  his  manu¬ 
factory  to  become  a  financier ;  as  a  speculator  on  the 
exchange  develops  a  sagacity  and  prudence  which  are 
not  surpassed  by  old  bankers  ;  has  the  keenest  scent  for 
money-making,  and  at  forty  years  of  age  is  a  millionnaire. 
He  is  a  practical  and  coarse-grained  nature,  a  mathemat¬ 
ical  head,  a  calculator  of  probabilities,  who  has  never 
known  any  kind  of  enthusiasm,  and  has  never  had  a 
glimpse  of  artistic  taste.  If  he  travels  to  Italy,  it  is 
not  to  enjoy  nature,  or  see  works  of  art:  he  is  to  be 
found  dallying  with  roulette  at  Monaco. 

He  is  practical  but  not  narrow-minded,  and  not  de- 

1  Don  Ranudo  (read  backwards  O  du  Nar  “  Oli,  thou  fool  1  ”)  is  the 
principal  character  in  Holberg’s  comedy  of  that  title. 


94 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA „ 


praved.  He  is  not  like  the  Polish  landed  proprietors, 
who  in  Galicia  (until  in  more  recent  times  it  was  pro¬ 
hibited)  tortured  their  Little-Russian  peasants,  and  pre¬ 
vented  their  going  to  church,  by  locking  the  doors  of  the 
Greek  church  to  them,  and  giving  the  keys  to  the  Jews, 
so  that  the  peasants  must  buy  them  back  in  order  to 
worship  the  Lord  on  their  festivals  ;  —  he  has  himself  no 
kind  of  religion,  and  he  is  willing  that  all  men  should 
have  theirs.  Nor  is  he  like  the  Polish  landed  proprietor 
in  Galicia  of  the  present  day,  who  lives  by  the  manu¬ 
facture  of  spirits,  and  by  forcing  as  much  of  it  as  possi¬ 
ble  into  his  peasants.  His  heart  is  without  any  sensi¬ 
tiveness;  he  is  as  harsh  as  he  is  obstinate;  but  he  does 
no  man  any  harm.  In  his  youth  he  has  been  a  humani¬ 
tarian  —  not  from  emotion,  but  from  force  of  a  process 
of  reasoning  in  which  the  right  is  the  logical  justice  ; 
now  he  is  so  no  longer  to  that  extent,  as  he  no  longer 
believes  in  the  utility  of  the  efforts  of  single  individuals 
in  respect  to  the  great  sum  of  social  misery,  and  as  he 
is  entirely  incapable  of  the  enthusiasm  which  leads  to 
action  even  if  the  profit  of  the  action  is  infinitesimally 
small.  Very  sharp-sighted  as  he  is,  he  feels  an  almost 
personal  hostility  to  all  metaphysics ;  he  has  written  a 
book,  a  sort  of  philosophy  of  mathematics,  in  which  he 
advocates  the  necessity  of  introducing  object  lessons 
into  the  department  of  mathematics,  and  combats  the 
use  of  the  words  line,  point,  etc.,  as  unreal  abstractions. 

Like  so  many  persons  with  mathematical  minds,  he  is 
skilled  in  music,  well  informed  in  all  musical  technics, 
conversant  with  modern  music,  and  eager  to  hear  a  great 
deal  of  good  music  well  performed. 

As  coarse  as  a  peasant,  unrefined  but  not  frivolous, 
narrow  but  not  shallow,  reckless  and  loving  money  hut 
upright  and  sometimes  almost  liberal,  he  is  a  decided 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT. 


95 


materialist  from  conviction  in  all  matters  as  to  which 
he  has  any  knowledge.  He  cannot  with  calmness  hear 
even  a  lady  submit  to  him  for  consideration  personal 
immortality  as  ever  so  weak  a  possibility  with  which 
imagination  might  amuse  itself.  To  the  question  why 
he  has  preferred  the  ballet-dancer  whom  he  keeps  in 
preference  to  any  of  the  other  actresses,  he  answers : 
“  She  is  a  bit  more  tidy  than  the  others,”  and  it  seems 
almost  to  be  the  moving  cause,  for  in  her  regard  for  him 
he  neither  believes  nor  can  believe. 

But,  in  spite  of  this  candid  materialism,  openly  ex¬ 
posed,  this  man  is  far  from  being  an  out-and-out  mate¬ 
rialist.  He  would  not  be  a  typical  Russian  if  he  wholly 
lacked  an  ideal  element.  And  he  has  it.  Tchernuishev- 
ski’s  old  book,  “  What  is  to  be  Done  ?  ”  (“  A  Vital  Ques¬ 
tion  ”  1 )  is  his  Bible.  Its  rebellious  propositions  and  con¬ 
tents  are  to  him  the  truth  in  regard  to  the  traditions  of 
the  old  society.  He  demands,  not  aloud  but  in  his  quiet 
thoughts,  a  reform  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  would 
have  that  freedom  introduced  which  is  proper  for  a  man 
of  age,  who  has  left  the  official  religion  and  the  official 
morals  equally  far,  far  in  the  rear,  and  there,  at  this 
point  of  his  spiritual  life,  is  a  nook  where  the  social 
Utopia  sprouts  and  blossoms  in  shade  and  twilight. 

Next,  the  following  type  is  more  characteristic  :  he  is 
also  a  prince,  but  probably  of  Tatar  descent ;  the  name 
indicates  this,  but  the  physiognomy  is  entirely  European. 
He  is  very  fine-looking,  very  elegant,  with  eyes  which, 
in  spite  of  his  being  almost  fifty,  shine  like  those  of  a 
youth,  or  rather  like  those  of  a  magnetizer.  He  is  unu¬ 
sually  gifted,  possessing  at  once  great  artistic,  linguistic, 
and  oratorical  powers. 

1  Translated  from  the  Russian  by  N.  IT.  Dole  and  S.  S.  Skidelsky; 
published  by  T.  Y  Crowell  &  Co. 


96 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Being  without  money,  he  chose  a  practical  career  while 
yet  very  young.  But  he  met  with  a  mishap  at  the  out¬ 
set.  Somewhere  in  a  foreign  country,  in  a  semi-private 
circle,  he  had  made  a  speech  of  a  political  tendency 
which  had  caused  displeasure.  On  his  return  home 
he  was  punished  by  exile  to  a  little  country  town  in 
Esthonia,  where  he  was  obliged  to  remain  for  ten  or 
twelve  years,  exclusively  limited  as  to  society  to  men, 
of  whom  not  one  stood  on  the  same  plane  of  culture  as 
himself,  and  shut  out  from  all  activity,  all  development, 
and  all  means  of  livelihood.  At  last,  he  lost  all  hope  of 
ever  being  liberated  from  his  place  of  exile,  and  in  a  sort 
of  desperation  married  a  young  woman  of  the  neighbor¬ 
hood.  who,  indeed,  was  both  pretty  and  good-hearted,  but 
separated  from  him  by  so  deep  an  abyss  in  culture,  that 
she,  on  her  part,  has  never  desired  to  enter  her  husband’s 
circle  in  society  at  St.  Petersburg  as  princess.  She  lives 
only  for  her  home  and  her  son. 

He  came  back  finer-looking  and  more  elegant  than 
ever,  thoroughly  cured  of  political  enthusiasm.  As  if  in 
scorn,  freedom  was  given  him  in  the  guise  of  a  govern¬ 
ment  appointment  in  which  he  must  work  in  its  service 
directly  against  that  system  of  thought  for  which  he 
had  suffered.  Cold  as  ice,  materialist  in  his  manner  of 
thought  and  in  all  the  relations  of  life,  he  has  allowed 
himself  only  one  passion  :  the  passion  for  collecting.  He 
collects  books,  manuscripts,  bronzes,  women.  In  liter¬ 
ature  and  art  he  gives  his  allegiance  to  the  principle,  Art 
for  the  sake  of  art ; 1  in  life,  to  the  principles  from  the 
time  of  the  court  of  Louis  XV.  Among  French  authors, 
he  specially  affects  the  line  of  Flaubert,  Zola,  Huysmans ; 
among  the  Kussian  poets,  Andreyevski,  a  lyric  writer, 
whose  poems  are  not  on  emotional  subjects!  have  no  emo- 
1  L’ art  pour  Vart. 


ANOTHER  TYRE. 


97 


tional  relations,  and  who  has  had  the  artistic,  exceed¬ 
ingly  odd  idea  of  turning  a  whole  novel  of  Turgenief 
into  verse. 

He  has  much  passion,  but  hardly  a  flash  of  emotion. 
He  is  frank,  entirely  truthful,  —  perhaps,  except  when 
it  is  a  question  as  to  his  age,  —  reserved  towards  men, 
open  towards  women,  who  worship  him,  and  in  whom  he 
trusts  after  having  educated  them.  More  than  one  is 
bound  to  him  as  if  by  enchantment,  although  he  has  con¬ 
stantly  taught  them  to  root  out  every  germ  of  emotion 
as  a  germ  of  misfortune,  aird  although  his  conversation 
with  them  chiefly  turns  upon  his  relations  to  his  other 
mistresses. 

Now  and  then,  this  man  shuts  himself  up  in  his  room, 
and  sits  lost  in  silent  adoration  of  a  statuette  of  a  favorite 
French  author,  with  a  long,  thick  mustache,  more  sin¬ 
cerely  loved  by  him  than  perhaps  any  Parisian  woman 
has  ever  been.  He  makes  a  journey  to  Paris  simply  to 
buy  a  particular  edition  or  a  single  autograph. 

He  has  no  convictions  outside  of  the  literary  and 
artistic.  But  within  this  circle  he  has  his  Russian 
enthusiasm  as  a  passion,  wholly  absorbing  him,  irra¬ 
tional  in  the  midst  of  all  his  intellectual  coldness. 

What  is  common  to  the  Slavs  is  easily  compre¬ 
hended  in  him.  On  closer  examination  and  comparison, 
that  which  is  essentially  Russian  may  also  be  compre¬ 
hended.  In  Poland  there  is  an  eminent  nobleman,  Iv.  J., 
who  belongs  to  the  same  class  of  men.  He  is  elegant, 
cold,  prudent,  and  yet,  in  certain  directions,  enthusiastic. 
This  Pole  and  this  Russian,  to  every  one  who  knows 
them  both  and  is  able  to  compare  them,  are  equally 
brilliant ;  but  the  Pole  is  vainer,  the  Russian  more 
directly  fond  of  sensual  pleasures.  There  is  a  remnant 
of  chivalrous  tradition  in  the  Pole,  which  the  Russian 


IMrRE-"l"X.<  OF  RUSSIA. 


lias  shaken  off.  The  Russian  satiety  goes  deeper  than 
the  Ihlish,  and  at  the  same  time  leaves  room  for  more 
force.  The  Pole  presents  a  weak  side  from  his  Polish 
dilettante  desire  to  distinguish  himself  in  every  depart¬ 
ment  :  the  Russian  is  of  harder  metal.  The  Polish  ideal 
is.  and  continues  to  be.  grace ;  the  Russian,  force. 

If  ve  now  place  the  two  typical  Russian  characters 
sketched  here  side  by  side,  we  shall  notice  that,  however 
different  they  are.  they  have  this  in  common,  that  the 
antic:]  ation  and  struggles  of  their  youth  have  been  made 
of  no  avail  by  circumstances,  so  that  they  have  been 
forced  by  necessity  to  be  smaller  men  than  they  were 
framed  f.  r.  hardened,  practical  materialists,  in  no  situa¬ 
tion  tc  do  anything  profitable  for  others  than  themselves, 
and  entertaining  their  ideals  as  one  cherishes  a  harmless 
eccentricity. 

The  two  currents  in  Russian  intellectual  life,  which  at 
once  strike  every  observer,  the  tendency  towards  'West¬ 
ern  Europe,  the  disposition  to  acclimatize  and  further 
develop  the  general  European  culture,  and  the  tendency 
inward,  the  national  self-absorption,  with  a  hostile  atti¬ 
tude  towards  ••  the  Gentiles "  in  the  west,  are  most 
plainly  personified  in  those  Tsars  of  great  historic 
renown.  Peter  ihe  Great  and  Nicholas,  two  funda¬ 
mental  Russian  types. 

If  you  go  still  farther  back,  you  find  both  these 
characteristics  united  in  the  old  Muscovite  Tsars.  Ivin 
III.  and  Ivan  IT.  the  Terrible,  the  latter  being  espe¬ 
cially  important.  He  has  well  been  characterized  as  a 
combination  of  Louis  XI.  of  France  and  Henry  YELL 
of  England :  a  mystical,  bloody  tyrant  and  prudent 
monarch  like  the  former,  and  having  about  as  many 
wives  as  the  latter.  It  looks  as  if  Peter  the  Great 
broke  with  all  the  traditions  from  the  old  Muscovite 


CONFLICTING  TENDENCIES. 


99 


princes  when  he  began  his  violent  reforms.  And  their 
coarseness,  stubbornness,  power,  cruelty,  and  mystical 
faith  in  the  might  of  the  Tsar  rise  up  again  in  this 
century  in  Nicholas.  But  even  then  Ivan  III.  turned 
to  the  different  European  courts  in  order  to  procure  from 
them  physicians,  artisans,  and  artists.  He  invited  into 
Kussia  foreign  masons,  metal-founders,  and  goldsmiths, 
and  caused  architects  and  engineers  to  be  brought  from 
Bologna  and  Venice.  Ivan  IV.  also  caused  handicrafts¬ 
men  to  be  brought  from  various  parts  of  Europe  ;  he 
approached  England  and,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of 
the  clergy,  brought  the  art  of  printing  into  his  empire. 
In  other  words,  in  the  more  remote  times  the  contrast 
between  the  condition  of  the  learners  to  the  culture  of 
Western  Europe  and  the  originality  in  the  strongly 
marked  institutions  of  the  Muscovite  Tsar  and  the  long- 
bearded  Byzantine  Russia  (governed  from  a  palace  which 
was  a  compromise  between  a  barrack  and  a  Greek  Cath¬ 
olic  monastery)  was  far  weaker,  far  less  sharp,  than  since 
that  time.  It  was  only  when  Peter  I.  at  a  blow  abol¬ 
ishes  the  dignity  of  the  Patriarch,  takes  from  the  Greek 
Church  its  landed  estates,  interdicts  the  national  dress 
(nay,  the  beard),  even  abandons  the  long  Byzantine  cos¬ 
tume.  in  order  to  dress  in  an  ordinary  uniform,  and  sta¬ 
tions  a  herd  of  foreigners,  more  or  less  unscrupulous,  but 
unacquainted  with  Russian  peculiarities,  at  the  head  of 
all  the  affairs  of  the  empire,  that  the  tendency  towards 
Western  Europe  comes  to  the  front  as  exclusive.  And  it 
was  only  when  Nicholas  wrapped  himself  up  in  a  decided 
hate  towards  the  ideas  and  reforms  which  emanated  from 
the  liberal  west,  when  he  limited  the  number  of  the  stu¬ 
dents  at  each  of  the  universities  to  three  hundred,  dis¬ 
continued  instruction  in  the  common  constitutional  law 
of  Europe,  intrusted  the  philosophical  instruction  to  the 


100 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


clergy  of  the  orthodox  church,  caused  the  manuscripts 
from  which  history  and  kindred  branches  were  taught  to 
pass  under  the  supervision  of  the  censor,  and  about  1840, 
speaking  in  general  terms,  would  not  allow  any  foreign 
newspapers  or  books  to  cross  the  frontier,  that  the  ten¬ 
dency  which  closed  Russia  to  Europe  was  developed 
not  less  exclusively.  At  that  time,  it  went  so  far  that 
all  the  instructors  in  geometry  in  the  land  were  ordered, 
when  they  were  teaching  the  properties  of  triangles,  to 
remind  their  pupils  of  the  holy  Trinity,  and  that  the 
performance  of  Lessing’s  “  Emilia  Galotti,”  Goethe’s 
“  Egmont,”  and  Schiller’s  “  Eiesco,”  were  forbidden, 
while  Rossini’s  “  William  Tell  ”  was  allowed  only  with 
the  words  and  title  of  “  Charles  the  Bold.” 

And  if  the  heterogeneous  old  Russian  types  appear 
sharply  in  these  Czars,  Ivan  III.  and  Ivan  IV.,  Peter  and 
Nicholas,  the  modern  Russian  type  of  civilization  is 
shown  not  less  clearly  and  peculiarly  in  the  person  of 
Alexander  I.,  with  its  conm  ingling  of  energy  and  fem¬ 
inine  receptivity, — of  comprehensive  liberalism  with 
care  for  all  the  oppressed  and  love  for  the  title  of  libera¬ 
tor,  on  the  one  side,  and  inertia,  the  mysticism  of  Mine, 
de  Kriidener,  a  propensity  to  diffuse  conceits  or  Utopias 
like  the  Holy  Alliance,  on  the  other. 

Tliis  nature  in  our  time  is  found  in  many  a  young 
Russian  of  rank,  who  travels  to  Berlin  to  seek  out  and 
passionately  attach  himself  to  Eugene  Diihring  or 
Edward  von  Hartmann,  calls  himself  positivist  or  pessi¬ 
mist  and  to  that  extent  regards  himself  as  standing  on 
the  heights  of  modern  progress,  —  but,  returned  home, 
with  tearing  haste  is  developed  into  a  Russian  high  con¬ 
servative,  enthusiastic  for  the  mission  of  absolute  power, 
for  the  omnipotence  of  the  dominion  of  the  Slav  and  the 
glory  of  the  Greek-Orthodox  Church.  One  of  these 


FOREIGN  INFLUENCES. 


101 


younger  men,  Prince  Z.,  a  good  man,  but  not  a  good 
poet,  a  philosopher,  who  is  accustomed  at  least  once  a 
year  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Edward  von  Hartmann,  imme¬ 
diately  after  Katkof’s  death,  sought  to  succeed  him  in 
charge  of  his  newspaper  in  Moscow  and  carry  it  to 
greater  lengths  in  his  spirit.  He  failed  in  solving  this 
problem,  not  from  lack  of  good  will  but  of  power. 

In  the  mean  time,  most  significant  for  Russia,  and  yet 
entirely  in  analogy  to  the  situation  elsewhere,  is  the 
intellectual  division  into  the  Western  European  and 
Slavophile  groups.  It  is  noticeable  and  extremely  Rus¬ 
sian  that  the  primitive  national  party  of  the  Slavo¬ 
philes,  not  less  than  the  Western  European,  owes  its 
origin  to  the  study  of  foreign  philosophy  and  poetry. 
It  is  just  as  true  that  the  great  revolutionary  spirits  of 
Russia  are  a  product  of  the  movements  which  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  thirties  took  possession  of  the  University 
of  Moscow.  Some  of  the  professors,  who  had  studied 
in  France  and  Germany,  at  that  time  awakened  the 
interest  of  the  young  students  for  French  socialism  and 
German  philosophy.  In  all  secrecy  and  from  prohibited 
books,  the  young  men  in  separate  groups  appropriated, 
some  of  them  the  ideas  of  Saint-Simon  and  Fourier,  and 
others  the  views  of  life  of  Schelling  and  Hegel.  They 
gradually  divided  themselves  up  in  such  a  manner  that 
one  party,  to  which  Herzen  and  Bakunin  belonged, 
united  that  manner  of  thought  which  was  nearly  allied 
to  that  of  Hegel’s  most  advanced  disciples  (Ruge,  Feuer¬ 
bach)  to  the  French  Socialistic  ideas,  which  were  pro¬ 
claimed  by  Louis  Blanc,  and  in  modern  French  light 
literature  by  George  Sand  and  many  others ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  natural  philosophy  of  Schelling  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  German  romanticists  for  everything 
national  and  old  German  was  kindled  m  the  party  of 


102 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  Slavophiles,  who,  wholly  in  the  spirit  of  these  Ger¬ 
mans,  demanded  a  purely  Slavic  culture  and  posed  as  the 
representatives  of  the  national  principle  in  its  full  sharp¬ 
ness.  They  cast  longing  looks  back  to  the  time  before 
Peter  the  Great.  The  Muscovite  Russia  was  the  home 
of  their  thoughts  and  dreams.  The  horrible  rule  of 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  in  spite  of  everything,  was  dearer  to 
them  than  the  modern  liberalism,  so  destitute  of  charac¬ 
ter,  and  parliamentarianism.  Their  most  precious  study 
was  Slavic  antiquities,  and  they  thought  that  they  were 
diving  into  the  Russian  national  spirit  when  they  had 
dived  deep  into  the  Byzantine  theology. 

To  that  extent  they  substantially  gave  a  voice  to  the 
forces  and  efforts  which  had  existed  since  the  time  of 
Peter  the  Great.  In  those  days  there  was  no  other  ele¬ 
ment  of  opposition  than  the  Raskolnik,  that  is  to  say, 
the  old  orthodox  party,  which,  since  the  time  of  the 
reformer  Nikon,  had  seceded  from  the  State  Church  and 
been  split  up  into  numerous  sects.  The  Patriarch  Nikon 
had  wished  to  regulate  the  ceremonies  of  the  church. 
From  his  time  on,  the  church  demands  that  its  followers 
shall  cross  themselves  with  three  lingers  and  say  three 
hallelujahs  in  succession,  and  fearful  consequences  have 
overtaken  those  who  resisted.  But  the  Raskolnik  have 
defied  the  knout,  exile,  and  execution  for  their  conviction 
that  one  ought  to  cross  himself  with  two  fingers  and 
only  say  two  hallelujahs  in  succession.  They  have 
allowed  themselves  to  be  burned  alive  for  their  convic¬ 
tion,  for  they  believed  that  they  would  suffer  everlasting 
damnation  if  they  consented  to  the  number  three.  It  is 
even  only  a  year  or  two  since  that  these  sects  have  been 
suffered  to  have  their  own  chapels  and  pray  as  they 
pleased  —  excepting,  however,  such  sects  as  are  still 
declared  to  be  dangerous  and  are  persecuted.  The  most 


WARRIORS  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 


103 


interesting  group  of  them  at  the  present  time  is  the  so- 
called  DukhoboHsi  (AVarriors  of  the  Spirit),  who  are  in 
the  largest  numbers  in  the  department  Voronezh,  and 
who  were  exiled  to  the  Caucasus,  to  a  region  without 
water.  They  have  shown  such  energy  as  to  have  con¬ 
verted  this  desert  into  one  of  the  most  fruitful  and 
richest  regions  in  the  Caucasus.  They  work  in  common, 
old  and  young,  women  and  children.  They  can  all  read, 
although  they  have  no  schools  ;  they  teach  their  children 
themselves.  They  do  not  recognize  holy  images.  They 
hang  up  in  their  houses,  in  the  corner  where  the  images 
are  usually  placed,  an  embroidered  towel.  They  do  not 
carry  the  cross,  but,  regarding  it  as  a  symbol  and  memo¬ 
rial  of  Christ’s  sufferings,  detest  instead  of  honoring  it. 

In  time  of  war  they  have  rendered  the  greatest  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  country,  when  there  was  need  of  transporting 
supplies  or  the  wounded  over  the  sometimes  impassable 
roads  of  the  Caucasus ;  they  freely  rendered  their  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  State,  which  had  treated  them  so  harshly,  and 
gave  their  wagons  and  time  without  compensation.  Yet 
it  is  characteristic  in  this  connection  that  in  all  these 
sects  the  most  profound  hatred  of  the  heathenish,  he¬ 
retical  institutions  of  Western  Europe  has  been  nour¬ 
ished. 

But  the  national  consciousness  and  hatred  of  the  for¬ 
eign,  mounted  from  the  lowest  classes  of  society  to  the 
highest  during  the  great  national  struggle  against  Napo¬ 
leon,  who  in  1812  inundated  the  land  with  hosts  of 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians,  and  Spaniards.  The 
great  prosperity  of  the  national  literature  followed  the 
great  contest  with  its  victorious  exit,  which,  both  in 
Pushkin  and  in  Griboyédof,  however  much  the  one  is 
influenced  by  Moliere  and  the  other  by  Byron,  is  contro¬ 
versially  turned  against  the  foreign  influence  in  the 


104 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


empire.  To  a  certain  extent  the  Slavophiles  thus  only 
continued  the  agitation,  which  had  been  planted  and  had 
reached  maturity.  This  intellectual  current  must  not  be 
confounded  with  the  Panslavist,  to  which  there  is  a  cer¬ 
tain  resemblance  in  name.  The  Panslavists  themselves 
have  been  European  radicals  like  Bakunin,  in  so  far  as 
they,  in  the  service  of  the  national  cause,  to  the  advan¬ 
tage  of  the  dissemination  of  the  peculiar  Russian  com¬ 
munism  and  association,  wished  the  union  of  all  the 
Slavic  races  and  the  foundation  of  a  great  Slavic  empire, 
monarchical  or  republican.  The  Slavophiles,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  directed  the  most  vigorous  assaults  towards 
those  sympathizing  with  the  Poles  in  the  west;  they 
represent  the  narrower  Russian  national  feeling,  and 
like  to  look  back  to  the  old  Byzantine  basis  of  culture 
and  faith  for  the  Russian  national  life.1 

If  we  turn  back  now  to  our  starting-point,  the  com¬ 
parison  between  the  Russian  and  Polish  intelligence,  we 
shall  see  that  the  Russian  intelligence  is  obliged  to  make 
almost  as  painful  a  choice  of  forces  as  the  Polish.  The 
dilemma  of  the  modern  Polish  patriot  is  this,  that,  if  he 
decides  to  labor  uncompromisingly  for  progress,  he  under¬ 
mines  the  Catholic  Church,  and  thereby,  for  the  time 
being,  the  Polish  nationality,  and  labors  in  reality  for 
the  oppressive  government,  —  the  force  at  hand  most 
hostile  to  himself  and  to  progress  of  every  kind.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  chooses  intellectual  stagnation,  he 
plainly  sees  the  danger  that  the  nationality,  which  is 
protected  thereby,  and  of  which  they  were  and  are  so 
proud,  will  fall  behind  in  European  culture,  and  become 
antiquated  and  outstripped.2  The  corresponding  dilemma 

1  Comp.  Julius  Eckhardt:  Junc/russich  und  Altlivlandisch ;  die 
russische  neue  Aera. 

2  Comp.  Georg  Brandes:  Indtryk  fra  Polen. 


PROGRESSIVE  RUSSIA  ’S  NEEDS. 


105 


of  the  progressive  Russian  patriot  is  this :  to  the  best 
of  his  ability  he  would  shake  off  foreign  influences. 
But  at  the  same  time  that  he  considers  that  what  this 
brings  in  its  train  is  ruinous  to  national  originality  and 
growth,  he  sees  that  the  Russians  are  less  advanced  than 
the  inhabitants  of  any  of  the  European  countries  except 
Turkey.1  However  strongly  he  may  complain,  like 
Tchatski,  the  celebrated  typical  Russian  in  Griboyédof’s 
“  The  Misfortune  of  Having  Intelligence,”  that  Moscow 
imitates  Paris  in  manners  and  customs,  in  language  and 
modes  of  expression,  in  fashions  and  follies,  neverthe¬ 
less,  like  Tchatski,  he  winds  up  by  turning  abruptly  on 
the  Russians  themselves,  who  feel  that  they  are  only  fit 
to  be  imitators,  and  who,  when  a  man  has  five  or  six 
ideas  by  means  of  which  he  rises  above  the  people,  and 
dares  to  express  them  freely,  fall  upon  him  like  barba¬ 
rians.  All  the  attacks  on  the  intellectual  supremacy  of 
the  foreigners  become  at  last  an  attack  on  that  Russia 
which  submits  to  and  finds  its  profit  in  it.  Tchatski, 
in  his  last  soliloquy,  utters  the  painful  cry,  “  It  is  also 
my  fatherland.”  And  thousands  have  ended  with  this 
cry  of  distress. 

In  other  words,  the  progressive  Russian  who  desires 
the  broadening  and  development  of  the  nationality  of 
his  people,  and  that  the  foreign  element  should  be  kept 
at  a  distance,  soon  comes  to  the  conviction  that  the  frag¬ 
ments  of  Western  European  culture  in  his  land  are 
always  worth  more  than  the  unquestionable  national 
roughness  and  the  equally  national  barbarity.  He  can¬ 
not  indeed  distinguish  between  the  people  and  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  for  a  great  people  have  the  government  they 
deserve.  He  sees  that  for  whatever  finer  culture,  scien¬ 
tific  insight,  and  artistic  taste  he  himself  possesses,  he 
1  Eckliarilt:  Jungrussisch  imd  Althvlandisch,  p-  18. 


106 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


is  indebted  to  the  civilization  of  Western  Europe,  and 
that  it  is  the  Russian  people’s  own  fault  if  they  have 
only  used  this  civilization  to  varnish  the  brutality  of 
their  form  of  government  and  the  barbarity  of  its  admin¬ 
istration.  The  more  nobly  and  earnestly  he  wishes  for 
his  country  the  gifts  of  justice,  humanity,  and  freedom, 
the  plainer  it  becomes  to  him  that  they  can  be  obtained 
by  unremittingly  and  uncompromisingly  opposing  the 
ruling  national  tendencies  of  centuries.  He  feels  the 
impossibility  of  wishing  for  progress  and  freedom  of 
thought  at  the  same  time  with  the  strengthening  of 
national  feeling  in  Russia.  Not  only  the  sentiment 
of  fatherland,  but  that  national  feeling  which  he  feels 
in  his  heart  to  be  justified  here,  become  re-actionary 
from  necessity.  The  freedom-loving  patriot  can  long 
enough  and  enthusiastically  enough  demand  the  devel¬ 
opment  of  the  people  from  within.  He  can  only  by 
virtue  of  the  points  of  view  supplied  by  the  culture  of 
Western  Europe  judge  what  there  is  in  his  own  coun¬ 
try  which  ought  to  be  promoted  or  repressed;  and, 
wherever  he  makes  his  exit,  if  he  desires  to  see  hu¬ 
man  and  civil  rights  respected  in  his  land,  and  to  see 
strong  emotions  and  productive  ideas  disseminated  and 
rooted  there,  he  comes  out  by  returning  to  the  deficient 
western  culture,  only  too  often  caricatured  in  Russia, 
which  the  sects  detest,  and  which  the  national  party  of 
the  Slavophiles  abhors  and  condemns.  For  on  the 
plane  of  development  Russia  has  at  this  time  reached, 
he  inevitably  finds  himself  compelled  to  choose  between 
the  two  forces,  —  either  the  national  with  the  sacrifice 
of  the  ideal  of  progressive  freedom  and  culture,  or  the 
decidedly  liberal,  but  then  also  without  any  firm  footing 
on  Russian  soil,  and  with  only  a  weak  connection  with 
the  national  spirit. 


THE  TWO  PATHS. 


107 


All  the  most  remarkable  men  of  Russia  had  this 
dilemma  to  contend  with.  Minds  like  Pushkin,  Gogol, 
and  Dostoyevski  chose  definitely  to  pursue  the  former 
direction ;  those  like  Alexander  Herzen  and  Ivan  Tur- 
genief,  the  latter. 


VIL 


In  the  year  1887,  the  hostility  in  Russia  towards  the 
German  Empire  reached  its  height.  They  had  the  feel¬ 
ing  that  the  future  conflict  was  not  very  distant,  and  the 
foreigner  frequently  heard  expressions  about  the  im¬ 
pending  European  Avar.  As  a  rule,  these  expressions 
were  desponding.  There  is  nowhere  such  a  lively  per¬ 
ception  of  the  very  great  weakness  of  Russia  as  in 
Russia  itself.  But  what  without  qualification  was  sig¬ 
nificant  for  Russia  was  the  almost  universal  wish  for 
defeat.  The  foreigner  heard  this  not  only  in  Northern 
but  in  Southern  Russia,  and  it  made  no  difference 
whether  the  speakers  were  Russians  from  the  east  or 
the  west,  provided  only  they  were  able  men  who  loved 
freedom.  I  have  certainly  heard  the  wish  expressed,  as 
if  by  common  consent,  by  more  than  fifty  Russians,  of 
the  most  varied  classes  of  society,  and  entirely  unac¬ 
quainted  with  each  other,  that  there  should  be  a  decisive 
defeat  in  an  ensuing  war.  We  can  scarcely  imagine  a 
more  instructive  symptom  than  what  I  have  here  stated 
of  the  deep  despair  which  exists  as  to  the  present  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  country.  No  other  possibility  of  liberation 
from  the  predominant  misery  presents  itself  than  that 
which  is  offered  in  the  weakness  which  an  unsuccessful 
war  Avill  entail  on  the  ruling  system. 

It  is  not  the  first  time  that  this  sentiment  has  flourished 
in  Russia,  and  that  wishes  apparently  so  unpatriotic 
have  been  cherished  by  men  who  have  the  greatest  love 

108 


ABSOLUTE  POWER  MODERN. 


109 


for  their  country,  and  are  the  best  educated.  It  was  the 
case  in  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War,  and  the  wholesome 
results  which  accompanied  the  defeat  are  distinctly 
remembered. 

The  terrible  oppression  which  exists  at  the  present 
time  is  by  no  means  of  so  old  a  date  as  is  sometimes 
believed  by  those  who  think  that  Russia,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  is  and  constantly  has  been  behind  Europe.  This 
is  a  re-action  toward  the  short  but  powerful  and  remark¬ 
able  period  of  freedom  and  emancipation  in  the  first  ten 
years  of  the  rule  of  Alexander  IT.  On  the  whole,  in 
Russia  freedom  is  the  old,  and  ^oppression  the  compara¬ 
tively  new.  The  oldest  Russian  law-book  ( Pravda 
Russkaya)  does  not  recognize  corporal  punishment. 
Serfdom  was  first  introduced  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  Pskof,  the  last  free  city,  like  the  old  Novgorod,  a 
republic  governed  by  a  popular  assembly  for  centuries, 
by  the  cruel  order  of  the  Muscovite  Tsar,  Vasili,  was 
deprived  of  all  its  privileges,  its  inhabitants  carried 
away  to  the  interior  of  Russia,  “  in  order  to  live  happily 
by  the  grace  of  the  Tsar,”  and  replaced  by  a  newly 
imported  body  of  men.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the 
deliberative  assemblies  of  the  provinces,  the  Zemstvos, 
which  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  spoken  loudly  and  ener¬ 
getically,  first  lost  all  their  importance,  and  the  theory 
of  absolute  power,  on  which  the  authority  of  the  rulers 
now  rests  in  Russia,  first  took  form  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  is  not  even  of  domestic  origin. 

Alexander  I.,  in  the  first  period  of  his  reign,  mani¬ 
fested  an  almost  modern  spirit.  He  appeared  to  be  a 
man  sincerely  fond  of  freedom.  He  loved  his  age,  de¬ 
spised  the  jiroceedings  of  the  revolutionary  re-actionists, 
was  for  a  long  time  an  admirer  of  Napoleon,  continued 
for  a  long  time  to  wish  well  to  France,  and  cherished 


110 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


plans  for  the  elevation  of  Poland.  It  seemed  as  if  under 
him  the  power  of  the  Tsar,  like  everything  else  in 
Europe,  was  to  be  humanized,  and  as  if  the  voice  of  the 
people  would  be  heard.  So.  under  the  strong  re-actionary 
counter-shock  towards  the  French  revolution  and  empire, 
it  was  two  persons  who  were  not  Eussians.  the  Piedmon¬ 
tese  He  Maistre  and  the  Frenchman  Bonald,  who  shaped 
the  great,  theory  of  re-action  which  was  victorious  through¬ 
out  Europe,  which  the  doctrinaires  of  Eussia  passion¬ 
ately  appropriated,  and  which,  slightly  modified  by  them, 
became  the  new  corner-stone  of  the  Tsar's  throne. 

The  present  condition  in  Russia  is,  then,  neither  the 
result  of  a  stagnation  for  a  thousand  years,  nor  of  a 
uniform  progress  towards  the  better,  which  has  been  too 
slow  and  much  delayed,  nor  of  a  retrograde  movement 
in  culture  uninterruptedly  continued  for  a  long  time. 
It  is  the  product  of  a  re-action  now  twenty -five  years  old, 
constantly  fortified  anew  by  insurrections  and  attempts 
at  assassination. 

It  is  not  that  there  is  a  want  of  good  will  and  earnest¬ 
ness  on  the  part  of  the  Tsar.  Justice  is  done  every¬ 
where  and  in  all  circles  to  his  character.  It  is  known 
that  he  likes  to  see  honorable,  upright  men  about  him, 
and  also  that  he  was  angry  at  the  corruption  and  deceit 
which  during  the  last  Eusso-Turkish  war  extended  even 
to  the  highest  officers  of  the  army,  and  had  so  large  a 
share  in  the  unfavorable  progress  of  the  campaign.  In 
other  words,  it  is  admitted  that  he  is  a  man  of  honor ; 
but  a  great  man,  a  great  leader,  is  at  this  moment 
needed  on  the  imperial  throne  of  Eussia.  It  is,  per¬ 
haps,  a  misfortune  for  a  people  to  need  great  rulers. 
A  country  like  Holland  or  Switzerland  certainly  has  no 
need  of  any.  But  it  is  a  greater  misfortune  not  to  have 
a  great  ruler  when  one  is  needed. 


FRIVOLITY  OF  THE  COURT. 


Ill 


The  Tsar’s  virtues  as  a  private  man  are  readily  recog¬ 
nized.  For  the  first  time  for  centuries,  for  the  first  time 
probably  at  all,  he  furnishes  an  example  of  an  occupant 
of  the  throne  of  Russia,  about  whose  relations  to  the 
other  sex  even  evil  tongues  have  not  the  slightest  thing 
to  report.  The  men,  as  well  as  the  women,  who  have 
occupied  it,  have  for  all  time  been  renowned  for  their 
erotic  extravagances.  The  emperor  seems  to  be  a  pat¬ 
tern  as  a  husband  and  a  father.  About  this  exemplary 
imperial  family,  the  Russian  court  nevertheless  runs 
riot  with  its  elegant  frivolity  and  its  numberless  irregu¬ 
larities,  without  re-acting  upon  it,  but  also  without  being 
influenced  by  the  spirit  which  emanates  from  it.  All 
the  world  knows  that  the  Prince  Imperial  Alexis  lives 
openly  with  the  beautiful  Countess  de  Beauharnais, 
sister  of  General  Skobelef,  whose  husband,  a  cousin  of 
the  Prince  Imperial,  the  Prince  of  Leuchtenberg,  has 
seen  his  profit  in  resigning  his  rights  to  a  prince  of  the 
imperial  family.  The  beautiful  German  Princess  Maria 
Pavlovna,  consort  of  Prince  Imperial  Vladimir,  of  whom 
the  author  of  the  book  La  Société  de  St.  Pctersbourcj, 
instigated  by  his  hatred  to  the  Germans,  relates  all 
imaginable  evil,  is,  as  it  were,  an  incarnation  of  the 
passion  for  court  pleasures.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
believe  what  is  said  of  her  by  the  pen  inspired  by  hate ; 
but  thus  much  is  true,  that  there  is  a  sort  of  recklessness 
which  stamps  the  tendency  she  gives  to  the  amusements 
of  the  court.  She  arranges  parties  in  which  they  amuse 
themselves  with  all  kinds  of  games,  but  chiefly  with 
playing  hide-and-seek  (cache-cache).  In  such  games  now 
and  then  a  lady  of  the  highest  rank  will  be  found 
hidden  away  with  an  officer  of  the  guards  in  an  empty 
bath-tub.  One  of  the  amusements  of  the  youth  in  these 
court  circles,  also,  is  to  get  up  sleighing  parties,  in  which 


112 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  finest  ladies  are  taken  out  in  basket  sleighs  drawn 
by  officers.  The  sport  is  that  the  officers  at  a  certain 
time  upset  the  sleighs,  with  all  their  contents,  in  the 
snow.  They  laugh  at  the  result. 

In  certain  higher  circles  of  the  court,  where  a  different 
spirit  rules,  there  is  no  other  amusement  than  dancing. 
They  dance  continually,  on  all  occasions,  with  a  real 
mania.  They  make  up  for  their  detention  for  many 
months  at  Gåtshina  by  whirling  away  in  an  endless 
round  dance.  Where  they  do  not  dance,  the  tediousness 
is  overwhelming.  Tea-parties  in  these  upper  circles  are 
described  as  tiresome.  The  guests  arrive  ;  after  a  while 
the  grand  persons  appear,  and  take  their  places  in  silence. 
Evidently  no  one  dares  to  ask  so  exalted  ladies  about 
anything.  Then  from  their  side  drops  a  question  as  to 
the  state  of  the  health  of  one  of  the  ladies  present.  As 
a  rule  she  answers  briefly,  and  therewith  the  conversa¬ 
tion  dies  away.  If  she  is  very  ingenious  or  very  good- 
natured  in  relation  to  the  embarrassment  of  the  grand 
company,  she  shapes  her  answer  so  that  it  makes  a  new 
question  almost  necessary  ;  but  when  the  little  series  of 
questions  and  answers  having  intimate  connection  with 
this  subject  is  exhausted,  — as  trustworthy  eye-witnesses 
assure  me,  —  twenty  or  twenty -five  minutes  may  elapse 
in  a  pause  of  complete  and  painful  silence,  during 
which  the  guests  look  smilingly  on  the  exalted  visitors, 
who,  in  turn,  distribute  their  smiles  upon  those  about 
them. 

Even  if  there  is  a  little  more  noise,  the  impression 
■may  sometimes  be  not  less  painful.  Eye-witnesses 
have  described  the  following  scene  :  the  old  courtier, 
Count  A.,  fell  while  waltzing,  and  remained  sitting 
on  the  floor.  This  evoked  a  laugh  from  the  Tsar. 
Stimulated  by  having  been  the  occasion  of  such  a  burst 


AMUSEMENT  AT  COURT. 


113 


of  good  humor  on  the  part  of  one  whom  it  had  been  the 
study  of  the  count’s  life  to  please,  the  old  man  danced 
out,  and  let  himself  fall  again,  this  time  with  comic 
gestures.  Renewed  laughter.  From  that  the  aged 
courtier  devoted  himself  the  whole  evening  to  evoking 
smiles  from  the  lips  of  the  august  being  by  playing  the 
clown.  While  all  this  was  going  on,  his  daughter,  the 
present  Countess  0.,  one  of  the  ladies  in  waiting  to  the 
empress,  sat  straight  and  stiff,  with  contented  mien  and 
a  smile  in  her  eye,  swallowing  her  anger  at  her  father’s 
abasement,  and  really  satisfied  with  the  obvious  favor 
which  fell  to  his  lot.  The  scene  reminds  one  of  what 
is  immortalized  in  the  well-known  painting  of  the 
court  of  the  Tsaritsa  Anna  Ivanovna,  which  is  widely 
known  in  Russia  by  the  copper-plate  engraving,  and  in 
which  the  members  of  the  first  families  of  Russia  are 
represented  playing  leap-frog  in  the  ball-room  of  the 
palace  for  the  amusement  of  their  sovereign  lady. 

Court  life  was  far  from  being  so  spiritless  as  now  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  II.  The  court  bigotry,  so  closely 
connected  with  shallowness,  was  also  unknown  during 
his  time.  Now  you  find  large  circles  among  the  aris¬ 
tocracy  who  belong  to  the  Radstock-Pashkof  sect,  which 
was  founded  not  many  years  ago  by  an  impostor.  In 
these  circles  they  pass  their  time  in  reading  “  The  Evan¬ 
gelists,”  damn  all  who  don’t  think  as  they  do,  and,  above 
all,  pick  their  neighbors  to  pieces.  Fanaticism  and  a 
malicious  propensity  to  gossip,  here  as  elsewhere,  go  hand 
in  hand.  A  large  part  of  the  members  of  this  stratum 
of  society  send  their  sick  to  the  priest  J oan  in  Cron 
stadt,  whom  they  believe  able  to  work  miraculous  cures 
by  the  laying-on  of  hands.  Even  Loris  Melikof  sent  a 
daughter  to  him  when  she  was  ill. 

The  vigorous  Greek-orthodox  re-action  in  the  highest 


114 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


circles  is  comparatively  new,  and  is  now  in  full  bloom. 
It  began  under  Alexander  II.  It  was  not  that  this  mon¬ 
arch  was  favorable  to  it ;  far  from  that.  But  his  consort, 
a  German  princess,  at  first  from  a  desire  for  popularity, 
afterwards  from  a  want  of  an  object  in  life,  when 
she  felt  that  she  had  entirely  glided  out  of  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  her  volatile  husband,  took  up  the  cause  of 
the  Greek-orthodox  Church  with  constantly  increasing 
warmth.  Thus  it  happened  for  the  first  time  from  time 
immemorial  in  this  empire,  where  the  clergy  occupy  an 
inferior  position  and  have  little  influence,  that  a  priest 
of  the  imperial  household,  the  wise  and  fanatical 
Bashanof,  became  influential  at  court.  It  was  this 
man  to  whom  it  also  happened  to  prepare  the  present 
Tsaritsa,  by  instruction  in  the  Greek  religion,  for  her 
change  of  confession.  And  among  the  court  ladies 
who  were  smitten  with  zeal  for  spreading  abroad  the 
sound  doctrine,  and  combating  Roman  Catholicism  and 
Lutheran  Protestantism,  especially  when  found  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  Russian  Empire,  Countess  Antonie 
Dmitrievna  Bludova,  a  slightly  deformed,  energetic, 
and  intelligent  girl,  made  herself  very  conspicuous.  It 
was  she  who,  under  Alexander  II.,  cemented  the  union 
between  the  Muscovite  Slavophile  party  and  Aksåkof  and 
Katkof,  and  was  the  first  to  master  the  Polish  Marquis 
Wielopolski’s  plan  for  a  reconciliation  between  Russia 
and  Poland,  with  a  hostile  attitude  towards  Germany. 
Through  her  father,  the  well-known  powerful  minister, 
she  accomplished  the  appointment  of  Wielopolski  as 
governor  in  Poland ;  but  then,  after  the  revolt  in  1863, 
she  was  converted  to  the  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of 
the  eradication  of  Roman  Catholicism,  and  actually 
initiated  the  horrible  religious  persecutions  in  Lithuania 
and  White  Russia.  It  was  she  who  stood  at  the  head 


RESULT  OF  TUE  CRIMEAN  WAR. 


115 


of  the  idolizing  of  Vilna’s  executioner,  Muravief,  in 
St.  Petersburg,  after  the  attempts  at  revolt  were  drowned 
in  the  blood  of  the  Poles  ;  and  it  was  she  who,  on  an 
appeal  to  the  liberal  Prince  Suvorof  for  a  subscription 
for  the  memorial  present  which  was  being  procured  for 
the  hero,  at  a  public  dinner  received  the  courageous 
answer,  which  deprived  the  prince  of  all  popularity, 
“  If  you  will  make  the  general  a  present  of  a  gold  axe, 
my  purse  is  at  your  service,  countess.”  She  took  care 
that  Katkof’s  most  fanatical  and  bloodthirsty  articles 
were  laid  before  the  Tsar  just  at  the  moment  when  he 
was  in  a  receptive  mood  for  that  kind  of  reading ;  and 
when,  after  Karakdsof’s  attempts  at  assassination  in 
1866,  a  decisive  re-action  took  place,  she  contributed 
perhaps  more  than  any  one  else  to  bringing  about  the 
result  of  placing  the  whole  educational  system  in 
bigoted  hands,  hostile  to  culture.  From  that  time  to 
the  present,  this  religious  re-action  has  continued  unin¬ 
terrupted,  partly  from  fashion  and  partly  as  a  prudential 
precaution.  The  political  re-action  took  it  up  in  its 
current,  and  carried  it  farther  on. 

This  political  re-action  can  be  dated  from  1863.  An 
orgy  of  ideas  had  preceded  it,  in  which  the  whole  nation 
revelled  in  hopes  of  progress,  and  became  intoxicated 
with  plans  of  emancipation. 

The  result  of  the  Crimean  War  had  put  an  end  to  the 
system  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas.  The  time  was  passed 
when  fanatical  narrowness  and  cruel  harshness  alone 
ruled  over  everything  in  the  Russian  Empire.  Not 
only  had  the  books  and  newspapers  of  Europe  been 
excluded,  but  the  greatest  obstacles  had  been  put  in 
the  way  of  travellers  across  the  frontiers,  whether  going 
or  coming ;  nay,  the  hatred  to  the  age  had  gone  so  far 
in  the  first  man  of  the  empire,  that  he  detested  rail- 


116 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


ways  and  prohibited  their  construction,  so  that  Russia, 
at  his  death,  had  only  the  single  line  between  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  and  Moscow,  and  this  one  was  managed  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  merchants  preferred  to  send  their  goods 
by  the  old  teamsters,  in  common  wagons,  as  the  safer 
and  cheaper  way. 

The  defeats  in  the  Crimea  brought  the  deliverance. 
In  however  great  respect  for  his  father  Alexander  II. 
had  been  educated,  he  was  compelled  at  once  on  his 
accession  to  the  throne  to  repeal  some  of  the  most 
absurd  of  these  laws.  This  was  received  by  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  had  been  so  long  gagged  and  fettered  as  if 
from  this  time  any  kind  of  criticism  of  Nicholas’s  sys¬ 
tem  of  government  would  be  allowed,  and  as  if  it  was 
the  Tsar’s  own  intention  now  to  change  everything. 
During  the  Crimean  War,  Herzen  had  already  estab¬ 
lished  his  Russian  printing-office  in  London ;  and  his 
weekly  newspaper,  Kololcol  (The  Bell),  gave  the  sig¬ 
nal  for  the  free  and  reckless  inquiry  into  all  the  blun¬ 
ders  and  follies  of  the  old  regime.  Never  had  such 
language  been  heard  in  Russia,  never  had  any  one 
wielded  such  a  pen.  The  boldness  carried  away  the 
readers  and  conquered  all  minds.  Herzen  was  soon  the 
most  influential  man  in  Russia,  the  idolized  dictator  of 
the  intelligent  youth.  He  seemed  to  be  omniscient ; 
nothing  which  happened  in  the  land,  from  which  he 
had  been  banished,  escaped  his  attention,  so  thoroughly 
was  he  informed.  He  published  secret  state  papers, 
like  the  memoirs  of  Catherine  II.;  he  threw  light  upon 
embezzlements,  frauds,  infamous  and  cruel  deeds,  com¬ 
mitted  in  various  parts  of  the  empire.  He  had  so  many 
connections,  and  in  such  high  places,  that  on  a  day 
when  Kololcol  contained  serious  charges  against  one  of 
the  imperial  adjutants-general,  and  a  number  printed 


CREATION  OF  A  PRESS. 


117 


in  St.  Petersburg,  without  the  compromising  passage, 
was  laid  before  Alexander,  who  was  a  constant  reader 
of  the  paper,  a  week  or  two  later  the  Tsar  received  the 
original  number  in  an  envelope,  with  a  few  lines  which 
gave  the  reason  why  it  was  sent  in  this  manner.  So 
widely  spread  was  his  newspaper,  that  in  Nizhni  alone, 
m  1859,  one  hundred  thousand  copies,  which  had  been 
introduced  from  Asia,  were  seized  by  the  police. 

There  was  at  once  formed  a  group  of  parties  with 
different  shades  of  opposition  or  progress.  There  was 
the  opposition  to  the  Germans  flourishing  at  the  court, 
on  the  part  of  the  higher  nobility  who  had  been  set 
aside  by  Nicholas  in  the  interest  of  absolute  power. 
There  was  the  opposition  of  the  Slavophile,  who,  as 
unaristocratic  as  possible,  idolized  the  people.  Finally, 
there  was  Herzen’s,  Ogaref’s,  and,  in  a  short  time,  the 
sceptical,  radical,  and  gradually  socialistic  opposition  of 
Bakunin,  who  had  escaped  from  Siberia.  And  all  these 
groups  of  opposition,  under  these  conditions,  for  the  first 
time  in  Russia  created  a  press. 

Until  the  forties  there  had  not  existed  in  the  great 
empire  any  other  press  than  the  official.  Under  Nich¬ 
olas  the  newspaper,  “  The  Russian  Bee,”  an  academical 
organ,  which  was  conducted  in  the  spirit  of  the  old 
classical  poets,  Lomonosof  and  Derzhavin,  carried  on  the 
same  war  against  the  romantic  tendency  inaugurated 
by  Pushkin  as  Oginski’s  organ  in  Warsaw  had  carried 
on  against  Mickiewicz  and  his  friends.  It  was  the  great 
Russian  critic  Byelinski  who  gained  a  hearing  for  the 
national  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was 
under  the  control  of  the  literary  impressario,  Ivrayev- 
ski,  who  is  still  living,  that  the  newspaper  “  The 
Annals  of  our  Fatherland  ”  was  published,  and  it  was 
sustained  by  the  genial  articles  of  Byelinski.  When  he 


118 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


died,  in  1847,  worn  out  by  his  literary  strife,  by  pov¬ 
erty  and  disease,  the  Annals  were  continued  in  Sovre- 
mennik  (The  Contemporary),  to  which  journal  the 
poet  Nyekrasof  contributed,  and  which  in  3858-02 
was  in  the  main  inspired  by  Tchernuishevski,  who,  as 
an  author  of  novels  and  works  on  political  economy,  had 
made  a  deep  impression  on  his  time. 

But  the  importance  of  the  press  in  Russia  must  be 
dated  from  the  end  of  the  Crimean  War,  and  from  the 
debut  of  Herzen  as  a  journalist.  For  before  this  time  the 
influence  of  the  writers  was  extremely  small,  chiefly 
because  the  more  intelligent  circles  spoke  and  read  only 
French,  with  persistent  contempt  for  the  journalistic 
productions  in  their  mother  tongue  ;  besides,  they  were 
compelled  to  limit  their  attention  to  purely  literary 
questions,  especially  such  as  this,  whether  the  Russian 
literature  ought  to  be  purely  national  or  not. 

Now,  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  decade,  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  newspapers  and  periodicals  were  at  once 
established.  How  numerous  they  were  is  best  shown 
by  a  fact  stated  by  Eckhardt,  that  in  1858-60  not  less 
than  seventy-seven  large  newspapers  were  compelled  to 
suspend  publication,  without  being  perceptibly  missed. 
Then,  as  it  still  happens  down  to  the  present  day, 
the  large  monthly  periodicals,  each  number  as  thick  a 
good-sized  book,  began  to  give  abstracts  of  books  in  the 
natural  sciences,  literary  history,  or  economy,  to  furnish 
political  comments,  and  to  publish  long  society  novels 
of  German,  French,  English,  or  native  authors.  The 
legitimate  daily  newspapers,  with  genuine  Slavic  enthu¬ 
siasm,  plunged  into  the  most  extreme  radicalism.  They 
became,  as  it  were,  giddy  from  the  heights  which 
European  culture  had  attained,  and  to  which  the  youth 
of  the  capitals  and  the  denizens  of  the  provincial  towns, 


EMANCIPATION  OF  THE  SERFS. 


119 


who  had  known  nothing  of  the  life  of  Western  Europe, 
were  now  suddenly  carried. 

The  first  question  which  forced  itself  upon  the 
thoughts  of  all  was  about  the  education  of  the  people. 
There  were  hardly  any  schools  in  the  land,  and  the  few 
that  did  exist  were,  in  the  rural  districts,  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  the  ignorant  popes.  There  were  no  other 
teachers  than  the  priests  of  the  country  towns.  At 
this  time,  Sunday  schools  were  started,  first  in  the  capi¬ 
tals,  and  then  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and  the 
teachers  in  these  schools  taught  without  pay,  from  pure 
enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  the  elevation  of  the  people. 
In  the  various  divisions  of  the  army,  the  officers  taught 
the  recruits  in  similar  schools,  the  officers  of  the  Guard 
distinguishing  themselves  as  teachers  above  all  others. 

It  was  under  these  conditions  that  the  great,  far-reach¬ 
ing  reforms  which  characterized  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  of  Alexander  II.  were  begun.  The  first  of  these 
was  that  which,  on  the  19th  of  February,  1861,  led  to 
the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  and  gave  to  more  than 
fifty  million  of  men  personal  freedom  and  a  share  in  the 
ownership  of  the  soil  of  Russia.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
it  caused  a  tremendous  diminution  of  the  power  of  the 
noble  landed  proprietors.  It  was  a  measure  at  once 
democratic  and  autocratic.  And  it  was  carried  through 
at  a  time  when  the  powers  that  had  hitherto  been 
respected  had  lost  their  splendor.  The  defeats  in  the 
Crimea  had  destroyed  the  prestige  of  the  army ;  the  short¬ 
comings  and  the  mistakes  and  the  frauds  of  the  admin¬ 
istration,  which  the  war  had  brought  to  light,  had  given 
a  death-blow  to  official  authority ;  the  clergy  had  long 
been  utterly  despicable.  Now,  by  one  blow  the  power 
of  the  nobility  was  diminished  in  an  unprecedented  man¬ 
ner,  at  the  same  time  that  a  large  part  of  their  property 


120 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


was  taken  from  them  without  any  proportionate  com¬ 
pensation.  The  hope  that  there  would  be  a  political 
reform  under  Alexander  II.  was  greatly  weakened,  just 
because  the  social  reform  in  this  form  came  first.  For  a 
long  time,  the  enlightened  classes  had  hoped  for  a  “  con¬ 
stitution,” —  as  it  must  naturally  be  in  the  beginning,  an 
aristocratic  constitution.  Now  political  liberalism  stood, 
in  the  presence  of  this  gigantic  advance  of  the  power  of 
the  Tsar,  without  any  hope  for  the  future.  For  now, 
when  all  the  lofty  peaks  of  society  were  levelled,  the 
position  of  the  power  of  the  Tsar  alone  was  unaffected 
and  even  expanded  to  a  dominion  over  soldiers  and  peas¬ 
ants  unlimited  by  any  kind  of  barrier. 

The  great  peasant  population  was  still  very  far  from 
being  satisfied.  They  had  for  a  long  time  cherished 
Utopian  expectations,  and  now,  especially  since  the 
socialistic  agitators  had  strengthened  their  illusions, 
were  waiting  for  the  immediate  transfer  to  them,  then 
and  there,  of  all  the  land  which  they  had  cultivated, 
without  any  equivalent.  This  disappointment  brought 
the  peasants  in  the  departments  of  Kazan  and  the  Volga  to 
an  armed  insurrection.  At  the  same  time,  disturbances 
broke  out  among  the  students.  The  abnormal  limitation 
of  the  number  of  students  at  each  of  the  universities  to 
three  hundred  had  been  repealed,  and  the  scholar  had 
suddenly  attained  a  prestige  almost  surpassing  that 
which  the  officers  of  the  Guard  had  hitherto  enjoyed. 
Now,  with  a  genuine  Russian  lack  of  principle,  the 
execution  both  of  legal  reforms  and  of  a  new  plan  of 
education  was  intrusted  to  the  old  re-actionists.  So  far 
as  the  former  reform  was  concerned,  the  leading  men, 
like  Count  Panin,  Minister  of  Justice,  accommodated 
themselves  to  the  demands  of  the  times  ;  but  only  three 
months  later,  when  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  had 


UNREALIZED  nOPES. 


121 


set  all  thought  in  vibration,  a  regulation  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  universities  was  published,  which  deprived 
the  students  of  all  the  liberties  previously  given  them, 
and  cut  off  their  hopes  of  obtaining  any  of  those  which 
they  had  been  led  to  anticipate.  They  were  deprived  of 
the  liberty  of  holding  meetings,  forbidden  to  have  charity 
funds,  and,  in  order  to  reduce  their  number,  each  stu¬ 
dent  was  required  to  pay  a  fee  of  fifty  silver  rubles  each 
semester.  In  all  the  university  cities,  in  Moscow  as  well 
as  in  St.  Petersburg,  in  Kief  as  well  as  in  Kharkof,  the 
young  men  refused  to  submit  to  the  new  rules.  Con¬ 
flicts  with  the  police  and  the  military  followed. 

In  18G2  the  irritation  in  Russia  reached  its  height. 
In  various  parts  of  St.  Petersburg  there  was  a  series  of 
fearful  conflagrations  which  indicated  the  breaking  loose 
of  revolutionary  instincts.  The  government  interfered, 
established  a  summary  court  for  incendiaries,  closed  the 
Sunday  schools  and  other  institutes  and  clubs,  put  re¬ 
straints  upon  the  press,  made  the  censorship  more  rigorous. 

Thus  when  the  baleful  blindness  of  the  Polish  dema¬ 
gogues  and  the  indiscreet  and  cruel  measures  of  the 
noble  Wielopolski  against  the  dangerous  spirit  of  rebel¬ 
lion  in  Poland  brought  about  the  outbreak  of  the  Polish 
insurrection,  it  was  the  event  from  which  all  the  re-action¬ 
ary  lusts  and  powers  in  Russia  were  to  imbibe  new  force. 

Up  to  tins  time,  Alexander  Herzen  had  been  the  hero 
of  cultured  Russia.  He  had  continually  manifested  a 
lively  sympathy  for  oppressed  Poland,  treated  its  cause 
as  his  own  and  as  that  of  his  friends.  He  now  ex¬ 
pressed  himself  warmly  in  behalf  of  the  revolt,  even 
after  the  protecting  attitude  of  the  powers  of  the  west 
and  their  threatening  mien  towards  Russia  (which  made 
the  Polish  nobility,  with  Zamoiski  at  their  head,  conquer 
their  scruples  against  an  alliance  with  the  popular  leaders 


122 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


in  Warsaw)  had  aroused  and  goaded  the  Russian  national 
feeling  even  among  the  liberal  groups  of  the  empire. 

Then  it  was  that  Katkof  entered  upon  the  scene,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  very  short  time  won  all  power  out  of 
the  hands  of  Herzen,  and  rose  to  the  position  of  the 
most  influential  man  in  Russia.  This  remarkable  man, 
who  died  only  in  August,  1887,  represented  during 
twenty-five  years  the  principle  of  oppression  in  a  land 
of  oppression,  promoted  during  the  whole  of  that  time, 
with  all  his  coarse  energy,  everything  that  was  inimical 
to  liberty,  wrote  down  everything  that  was  non-Russian, 
demanded  and  supported  the  establishment  of  complete 
uniformity  in  the  great  empire. 

Mikhail  Nikoforovitch  Katkof  is  a  unique  phenomenon 
in  the  history  of  Russia.  As  long  as  the  empire  has 
stood,  it  has  never  been  seen  before  his  time  that  a  pub¬ 
licist,  without  official  position  and  without  any  external 
or  official  authority,  has  exerted  an  influence  on  the  acts 
of  the  government,  saying  nothing  of  what  was  the 
case  with  him,  exerting  a  greater  influence  than  the  gov¬ 
ernment  itself.  To  that  extent,  but  only  to  that  extent, 
can  his  life  be  said  to  point  towards  a  new  time.  Never¬ 
theless  the  cause  of  satisfaction  vanishes  when  we 
examine  into  the  manner  in  which  he  reached  this  degree 
of  power.  He  attained  it  because,  with  a  recklessness 
which  too  often  disregarded  the  claims  of  truth  and  the 
demands  of  justice,  he  devoted  himself  to  flattering 
the  national  vanity  and  cultivating  the  national  pride  in 
its  most  detestable  forms. 

Katkof  made  his  debut  as  professor  of  philosophy  in 
the  University  at  Moscow  with  contributions  of  slight 
importance  to  the  history  of  philosophy.  He  was,  from 
the  beginning,  an  adherent  of  German  philosophy, 
especially  an  admirer  of  Schelling,  and  then  belonged  to 


RISE  OF  KATKOF. 


123 


the  same  circle  as  the  enthusiastically  satirical  Byelinski 
and  the  celebrated  international  revolutionist  Bakunin. 
He  called  himself  an  idealist  and  taught  the  cult  of 
the  ideal.  As  a  worshipper  of  the  ideal  in  1848  he  was 
removed  from  his  position. 

In  1856  he  established  a  monthly  periodical,  “The 
Russian  Messenger  ”  (Russki  Vyestnik),  and  in  1861  he 
assumed  the  control  of  the  daily  paper,  “.The  Muskovite 
News  ”  (Moskovskiya  Vyedomosti).  He  began  his  career 
in  both  of  the  journals  as  an  extreme  liberal  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  type,  demanded  self-government,  extension  of  the 
distribution  of  power,  constitution,  etc.,  until  in  1861-2, 
when  radicalism  broke  out  of  bounds,  when  the  disturb¬ 
ances  of  the  peasants  and  of  the  students  frightened 
timid  people,  and  when  it  was  brought  to  light  that  a 
multitude  of  men  and  women  in  high  positions  in  Russia 
were  in  communication  with  Herzen’s  revolutionary 
party  in  London,  the  possibility  of  a  complete  change  in 
public  sentiment  was  apparent. 

Then  Katkof  felt  that  the  moment  was  propitious  for 
a  change  of  front  and  for  setting  himself  up  as  the 
Savior  of  Russia.  He  broke  the  silence  which  had 
been  laid  upon  the  whole  press  of  Russia  in  regard  to 
his  old  exiled  friends,  Herzen,  Ogaref,  and  Bakunin. 
Although  their  names  could  not  be  mentioned,  and  their 
existence  was  officially  ignored  by  the  government,  he 
attacked  them  openly  as  enemies  of  their  fatherland, 
and  to  blame  as  the  cause  of  all  the  disturbances.  This 
was  the  first  shock  given  to  the  great  influence  of  Herzen 
among  the  cultured  classes  of  Russia.  And  then  in 
1863,  at  the  time  when  the  Polish  revolt  broke  out,  when 
Herzen  committed  the  imprudence  of  offending  the 
Russian  national  feeling,  and  the  approval  with  which 
the  uprising  was  greeted  by  the  Russian  emigrants  had 


124 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  result  that  the  liberal  Russian  newspapers  manifested 
their  sympathy  by  silence,  then  it  was  that  Katkof  made 
his  master-stroke.  He  denounced  the  emigrants  and 
nihilists  as  perfidious  traitors  to  their  country,  preached 
the  strongest  Russian  chauvinism,  demanded  not  only 
that  the  rebels  should  be  put  out  of  the  way,  but  that 
the  independent  existence  of  Roland  should  be  blotted 
out  by  changing  the  kingdom  to  a  Russian  province. 
When  the  revolt  was  quelled,  Katkof  was  one  of  the 
most  popular  men  in  the  higher  circles  of  Russia.  It 
was  he  who  caused  Muravief  to  be  sent  as  “  Hanging 
Dictator  ”  to  Wilna.  It  was  under  his  ægis,  under  the 
pretence  of  the  law  of  self-preservation  of  the  State, 
that  the  democrats  gave  the  Lithuanian  peasants  freedom 
and  land  through  the  unbridled  plundering  of  the  Polish 
nobility,  and  that  the  Slavophiles  urged  religious  perse¬ 
cution  under  the  pretence  of  wishing  to  eradicate  the 
tyranny  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

From  this  time  on,  Katkof  could  only  rise  and  rise  in 
influence  in  the  same  degree  as  the  re-action  in  Russia 
rose.  He  had  identified  himself  with  it. 

The  quondam  philosopher  was  henceforth  the  most 
zealous  adherent  of  the  Greek  orthodoxy.  The  quondam 
English  liberal  was  henceforth  a  worshipper  and  de¬ 
fender  of  the  national  absolutism,  more  national  than 
the  government,  more  monarchical  than  his  monarch. 
All  his  disputes  with  the  Court  and  the  Tsar  were  only 
lovers’  qucwtrels,  occasioned  by  too  much  zeal  on  his  part. 

His  power  increased  to  an  incredible  degree.  When, 
on  one  occasion,  the  ministry  forbade  the  publication  of 
his  newspaper,  he  nevertheless  issued  it  as  usual,  only 
with  the  comment  that  it  was  forbidden,  but  that  the 
prohibition  must  have  arisen  from  a  misunderstanding. 
It  passed  unchallenged;  the  Tsar  sustained  him. 


KATKOF’S  INFLUENCE. 


125 


The  Polish  nation,  from  this  time  forth,  was  to  the 
Slavophiles  the  embodiment  of  the  detested  Western 
Europe  and  of  the  detested  Catholicism.  But  the 
ownership  of  the  soil  was  given  to  the  Lithuanian  peas¬ 
ants,  chiefly  because  the  Slavophiles,  with  Milyutin  at 
their  head,  hated  the  Poles  as  aristocrats.  For  them  the 
Polish  nationality  was  a  peculiarity  of  the  noble  caste, 
and,  as  such,  ought  to  be  rooted  out  of  Russia.  Here 
also  the  absolute  power  sought  to  contract  an  alliance 
with  the  masses  against  the  higher  classes. 

But  to  Katkof  personally  the  uniformity  of  the  Russian 
state  was  henceforward  the  most  important  principle.  He 
allied  himself  with  the  Slavophiles  in  order  through  their 
worship  of  democracy  to  bring  the  government  to  stir 
up  the  Finns  against  the  Swedes  in  Finland,  the  Lithu¬ 
anians  against  the  Poles  in  Poland,  the  Esthonians  and 
the  Letts  against  the  Germans  in  the  Baltic  provinces, 
because  they  necessarily  insisted  on  the  idea  that  the 
strengthening  of  all  these  oppressed  small  nationalities 
in  their  relation  to  the  ruling  people  was  only  the  first 
step  to  the  final  and  complete  Russianizing  of  those 
countries. 

Then  in  18G6  came  the  attempt  of  Karakosof  to  assas¬ 
sinate  Alexander  II.,  and  it  gave  to  the  re-action  its  last 
strong  impulse.  Katkof  shouted  with  joy,  “  The  pistol 
shot  of  Karakosof  has  purified  the  air.”  It  is  quite  true 
that  in  a  short  time  the  government  got  frightened  at 
its  alliance  with  democracy.  It  once  more  cast  its 
looks  towards  the  nobles,  whom  it  had  hitherto  mis¬ 
trusted,  because  they  had  wished  for  a  constitution. 
Even  Katkof’s  paper  was  suppressed  for  two  months,  as 
a  punishment,  because  its  editor  refused  to  publish  a 
warning  from  Valuyef.  But  soon  the  reign  of  terror, 
friendly  to  the  peasants,  conquered  under  Milyutin  in 


126 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Poland,  and  the  example  from  Poland  could  not  be 
defied  in  Russia  proper.  The  unrestricted,  absolute 
power  and  the  unqualified  Greek  Catholic  orthodoxy, 
which  had  been  upheld  in  the  western  provinces,  were 
necessarily  upheld  throughout  the  whole  empire.  Now, 
when  the  glamour  of  the  name  of  the  Tsar  has  become 
weaker,  we  can  see  the  possibility,  as  a  result  of  the 
situation,  that  in  times  of  disturbance  a  dictator  might 
usurp  the  power,  —  a  man  of  revolution,  for  instance, 
if  such  could  be  found,  with  a  past  and  a  popularity, 
like  Skobelef,  the  celebrated  cavalry  general  who  died 
under  such  horrible  circumstances. 

From  1866  the  current  of  re-action  continually  in¬ 
creased.  Everything  helped  it  on,  radical  as  well  as 
retrograde  agitations  in  foreign  lands.  Soon  at  several 
places  in  the  empire  the  oppression  becomes  too  strong, 
produces  this  revolutionary  propaganda  or  attempts  at 
political  murder,  and  for  every  political  prosecution 
re-action  takes  a  new  stride,  with  doubled  frenzy. 
Everything  strengthens  it,  everything  works  to  its 
advantage.  The  old  “Nihilism,”  which  was  described 
by  Turgenief,  which  was  substantially  an  intellectual 
emancipation,  with  its  whole  energy  concentrated  on 
the  attack  on  Christianity,  and  with  a  love  for  science, 
which  found  its  expression  in  dislike  of  art  as  useless 
and  undemocratic,  was  over  about  1870.  The  insurrec¬ 
tion  of  the  commune  in  Paris,  and  the  outbreaks  of  the 
internationals,  set  the  minds  of  the  youth  in  active  fer¬ 
ment  at  this  time.  A  generation  had  arisen,  which, 
instead  of  the  individualized  radicalism  of  the  older 
“Nihilists,”  had  socialism  for  a  religion  and  the  people 
for  a  God. 

From  all  parts  of  Russia  and  Siberia  young  girls 
streamed  to  Zurich  to  study  medicine  and  socialism.  In 


POPULAR  PROPAGANDISM. 


127 


1872  Prince  Krapotkin  began  to  work  among  the  arti¬ 
sans  in  the  suburbs  of  St.  Petersburg.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  seventies,  young  men  and  women  of  the  families 
of  the  highest  rank,  by  hundreds  and  hundreds,  “went 
out  among  the  people,”  labored  there  twelve,  fifteen 
hours  a  day  in  the  fields,  in  the  workshops,  in  the 
factories,  in  order  to  propagate  modern  ideas  everywhere 
among  the  common  people.  But  in  the  provincial  and 
country  towns,  where  everything  is  spread  by  rumor, 
the  presence  of  a  propagandist  could  not  possibly  long 
be  a  secret  to  the  police  and  government.  One  arrest 
followed  another.  Not  less  than  thirty-seven  provinces 
were  declared,  in  a  government  circular  of  1875,  to  be 
“  infected  by  socialistic  contagion.”  In  1876  and  1877, 
almost  the  whole  of  this  generation  of  young  men  and 
women  with  their  minds  in  a  ferment  was  mowed  down. 
All  the  prisons  were  full  of  political  offenders,  and  it 
was  constantly  found  necessary  to  build  new  ones. 
Mere  suspicion  led  to  imprisonment.  A  letter  from  a 
friend  who  had  “gone  out  among  the  people,”  an  answer 
from  a  child  twelve  years  old,  who,  when  interrogated 
by  the  police,  did  not  know  what  he  said  from  fright, 
was  quite  sufficient.  So  also  in  1876  to  1878,  in  the 
different  Russian  cities,  on  the  chance  occasion  of  a 
funeral  or  a  death  sentence,  there  were  demonstrations 
and  street  revolts,  the  outbreak  of  passionate  despair, 
meaningless  in  so  far  as  they  could  never  reach  the 
proportions  of  a  general  revolt,  and  invariably  imme¬ 
diately  suppressed  by  the  military.  The  uselessness  of 
all  such  demonstrations  produced  the  result  that  a  party 
of  terror  was  finally  formed,  which  determined  to  work 
by  single  attempts  at  assassination. 

The  earlier  propaganda  made  its  exit  at  the  end  of 
the  seventies  with  the  193  trial.  These  unfortunate  per- 


128 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


sons  had  been  in  prison  for  four  years,  while  the  slow 
and  thorough  investigation  lasted.  The  Russian  cell 
system  during  this  period  bore  so  heavily  upon  them, 
that  of  the  one  hundred  and  ninety-three  no  less  than 
seventy-five  committed  suicide,  became  insane  or  died. 
A  special  tribunal  had  been  arranged  for  the  trial  of 
this  cause,  so  that  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the 
judgment  would  be  against  the  government.  There  were 
sentences  of  ten,  twelve,  fifteen  years  imprisonment,  with 
hard  labor,  for  two  or  three  lectures,  privately  delivered 
to  a  handful  of  workmen,  or  for  having  bought  or  loaned 
a  single  book.  And  so  harshly  were  political  prisoners 
treated  in  prison  that  in  the  central  prison  at  Kharkof 
(“  house  of  terror  ”)  there  were  several  attempts  at  insur¬ 
rection  among  them  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the 
same  treatment  as  the  common  criminals.  And  when 
the  senate  of  Alexander  II.,  which  in  other  respects  was 
pliant  enough,  in  the  form  of  a  petition  for  pardon,  ac¬ 
quitted  the  larger  number  of  the  193,  the  Tsar  person¬ 
ally  set  aside  the  verdict  of  the  Senate.  Not  even  in 
the  laws  which  this  government  had  promulgated  did 
it  seek  its  support  against  its  antagonists.  It  was, 
therefore,  natural  that  these  antagonists  did  not  regard 
it  as  anything  else  than  organized  injustice,  against 
which  all  weapons  seemed  to  be  allowable. 

In  1877  followed  Viera  Sassulitch’s  attempt  to  assas¬ 
sinate  General  Trepof,  who  had  caused  a  political  pris¬ 
oner  to  be  whipped,  and  her  acquittal  by  the  jury, 
which  aroused  the  attention  of  the  whole  of  Europe. 
In  August,  1878,  came  the  bullet  from  “  Stepniak’s  ”  re¬ 
volver,  which,  in  the  forenoon,  in  the  open  street,  killed 
General  Mesentzef,  chief  of  the  political  police.1  Among 
the  numerous  attempts  at  political  murders  which  now 
1  Stepniak:  Underground  Russia.  Introduction. 


RUSSIA'S  FOREIGN  POLICY. 


129 


followed  are  the  four  against  Tsar  Alexander  II.,  of 
which  the  first  occurred  April  2,  1879,  the  last,  which 
resulted  in  his  death,  March  13,  1881. 

Nothing  has  set  Russia  farther  backward  than  this  last 
occurrence,  which  was  pregnant  with  misfortune.  It 
immediately  prevented  the  formation  of  a  sort  of  parlia¬ 
mentary  constitution,  which  had  just  then  been  prom¬ 
ised.  It  frightened  the  successor  to  the  crown  back 
from  the  paths  his  father  had  entered  upon  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  his  reign,  and  it  seemed  to  justify  the  rulers  in 
reprisals  and  measures  of  prevention  of  every  kind. 

Thus  they  have  reached  a  point  where  they  now  are, 
reached  a  policy  which  is  no  policy,  —  a  policy  of  appre¬ 
hension  and  irresolution. 

Generally,  when  we  speak  of  the  policy  of  Russia,  we 
mean  its  foreign  policy,  and  many  are  dazzled  by  the 
extraordinarily  large  display  of  the  power  of  the  empire. 
We  speak  about  Russia’s  great  “mission”  in  Central 
Asia,  about  its  irresistible  advance  towards  India,  etc., 
and  then  we  admire  Russian  statesmanship.  But  what 
power  is  there  in  Russia’s  subjugating  a  little  larger 
or  smaller  number  of  semi-barbarian  tribes  in  Asia, 
and  what  statesmanship  is  there  in  involving  itself 
continually  with  more  wars  there,  when  it  must  con¬ 
cern  Russia  to  collect  all  its  powers  and  make  all  its 
preparations  for  the  great  impending  conflict !  These 
Russian  generals,  with  their  victories  won  from  Tatars 
and  Turcomans,  remind  us  altogether  too  much  of  those 
French  commanders  who  were  victorious  over  Abd-el- 
Kader  and  were  defeated  by  Moltke.  What  else  are 
they  doing  in  Russia  now,  than  once  a  year  to  conquer 
an  Abd-el-Kader ! 

And  to  pit  against  a  man  with  Bismarck’s  genius  for 
managing  foreign  affairs,  Russia  has  not  a  single  prime 


130 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


minister,  not  one  of  any  kind  whatever.  For  there  is  no 
prime  minister  in  the  Russian  ministry.  The  unlimited 
power  of  the  Tsar  does  not  tolerate  this  at  all.  AY  hen 
Gortchakof  was  chancellor  it  was  only  a  title.  Under  the 
present  management,  Russia,  the  great  exponent  of  the 
Slavs,  has  succeeded  in  making  itself  detested  to  the  ut¬ 
termost  by  all  the  Slavic  nations.  This  government  has 
carried  it  to  so  great  an  extent  that  Russia  is  now  hated 
by  Bulgaria  and  Servia  (nay,  by  the  hybrid  people  of 
Roumauia)  as  it  is  hated  by  the  Poles, — and  that  means 
much.  Russia  liberated  Bulgaria  from  the  Turkish  reigu 
of  tenor,  and  has  now  successfully,  after  the  lapse  of 
not  ten  years,  by  falsehood,  violence,  hypocrisy,  by  in¬ 
famous  :  cts  for  whose  authority  ihe  Bulgarians  look 
to  the  higher  circles  of  the  Russian  government,  brought 
matters  to  the  pass  that  the  liberators  of  that  day 
are  more  hated  than  the  oppressors  were  ten  years 
ago. 

But  the  internal  policy  is  still  more  pitiable.  It  is 
certainly  not  a  parliament  which  is  most  greatly  needed. 
Only  the  naive  youth  in  Russia  can  think  that.  A  par¬ 
liament  could  easily  be  imagined  so  chosen  that  it  would 
be  more  conservative  than  the  government  itself.  It 
would,  in  all  probability,  if  established  now,  be  such  a 
body  as  the  Duma  (city  council)  in  Moscow  is.  That 
is  elected.  Nay ;  Moscow  has  what  Paris  has  so  long 
fought  for  in  vain,  —  its  own  elected  mayor.  The  Duma 
is  not  on  that  account  the  less  conservative,  and  it  would 
not  present  a  different  appearance  if  it  had  been  the  gov¬ 
ernment  and  not  the  citizens  in  Moscow  who  had  elected 
its  members.  No,  it  is  not  a  popular  assembly  that  it 
concerns  Russia  to  get  first.  Russia  needs  a  bona  fide 
administration.  Yet  it  is  understood  everywhere  there 
are  no  institutions,  no  provincial  home  rule,  no  inde- 


ED  UCA  TIONA  L  O  EDERS. 


131 


pendent  courts,  no  genuine  seminaries  of  learning,  no 
schools  in  the  proper  sense. 

During  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  this  Tsar  the  enor¬ 
mous  Siberia  has  been  denied  the  permission  to  found 
even  a  single  university.  It  was  feared  that  it  would 
give  Asiatic  Russia  too  much  independence.  Permis¬ 
sion  has  only  just  been  given  for  the  foundation  of  a 
university  at  Tomsk,  which,  in  the  present  circumstances, 
is  of  hardly  any  importance. 

All  knowledge  is  dreaded.  The  most  recent  circular 
(illegal,  but  carried  into  effect),  which  after  Katkof’s 
death  was  prepared  by  the  curator  in  Odessa,  makes  it 
the  duty  of  the  school  committees  to  decide  whether  the 
parents  are  sufficiently  well  off  for  the  children  to  be 
admitted  to  a  grammar  school.  They  are  required  to 
ask  how  the  parents  live,  in  what  kind  of  a  house  and 
of  how  many  rooms,  how  much  money  they  earn  annually, 
and  who  their  friends  are. 

The  universities  are  closed  at  the  least  sign  of  a  dis¬ 
turbance.  This  happened  to  all  the  universities  in  Russia 
proper  in  the  spring  of  1888,  after  the  unimportant  affair 
of  Brysgalof’s  box  on  the  ear  at  Moscow  ;  St.  Petersburg, 
Moscow,  Kazan,  Kharkof,  and  Odessa  were  at  once  closed 
for  fear  of  students’  pranks. 

Since  then  the  curator  of  the  universities  in  Odessa 
has  prepared  a  new  circular,  in  which  it  is  said:  “Since 
several  instructors  have  allowed  themselves  publicly  to 
express  their  thoughts  without  the  reservations  which 
are  due  to  their  position  in  the  educational  system,  and 
without  feeling  themselves  bound  by  the  duties  of  the 
service  when  the  question  turned  upon  something  which 
had  no  direct  connection  with  this  service,  —  and  since 
they  have  even  appeared  as  recognized  organs  for  cer¬ 
tain  circles  of  society,  have  takeu  part  in  party  debates, 


132 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


nay,  have  even  allowed  themselves  to  be  drawn  into 
controversies  in  newspapers,  —  the  curator  requires  them 
for  the  future  to  use  greater  prudence.” 

It  forbids  them  to  take  part  in  the  discussion  of  social 
and  literary  questions.  It  closes  with  the  expression  of 
the  hope  that  for  the  future  they  will  solemnly  devote 
their  leisure  hours  to  matters  of  instruction  and  educa¬ 
tion. 

All  this  was  because  a  poor  little  teacher  in  a  club 
had  suffered  himself  to  criticise  Katkof. 

Upon  the  whole,  we  in  Western  Europe  can  form  no 
idea  of  the  grade  of  civilization  occupied  by  these  cura¬ 
tors.  When,  in  1884,  the  students  in  Kief  had  arranged 
a  banquet  on  the  jubilee  of  the  old  university,  one  fine 
day,  by  a  gratuitous  regulation  of  the  curator,  they  were 
wholly  excluded  from  participation  in  the  festival. 
When  they,  mortified  and  exasperated  as  they  were, 
hissed  at  the  curator  and  the  well  known  president  of 
the  Synod  Pobyedonostsef,  as  a  punishment  they  were 
all  expelled  from  the  university.  There  was  only  one 
single  man  m  Russia  with  whose  principles  it  agreed  to 
praise  this  act :  it  was  Katkof.  The  students,  he  wrote, 
who  had  not  participated  in  the  demonstration  are 
responsible  for  not  having  prevented  it. 

From  absolutely  trustworthy  sources  there  has  been 
communicated  to  me  the  following  incident,  which  re¬ 
cently  occurred  in  the  case  of  another  curator,  Novikof, 
who  had  come  to  examine  (audit,  as  it  is  called)  a  school 
in  Novgorod.  He  finds  at  the  teacher’s  two  books  :  one, 
a  collection  of  Korolenko’s  tales ;  the  other,  a  volume  of 
Dostoyevski’s.  Not  having  any  idea  as  to  who  the  first 
author  is,  he  looks  for  the  name  of  the  publisher  and  finds 
the  name  of  the  magazine  Russakaya  My  si  (The  Rus¬ 
sian  Thought),  which  is  published  in  Moscow  and  edited 


MONSTROSITIES  IN  INSTRUCTION. 


133 


by  Goltzef  in  a  moderate,  liberal  spirit.  He  says,  in 
a  discontented  tone,  “  Don’t  read  productions  from  that 
socialist  organ  !  But,”  he  continues,  “  what  dissatisfies 
me  still  more,  is  that  you  have  Dostoyevski  here. 
He  talks  about  love  too  much  in  his  books.  I  know, 
indeed,  that  it  is  the  Christian  love ;  but  it  doesn’t 
matter,  it  is  love  all  the  same,  and  love  is  good  enough 
in  the  beginning,  —  but  look  out  how  it  ends  !  ” 

Now,  if  we  distinctly  conceive  what  authority  such  a 
curator  of  universities  possesses,  especially  those  who 
rule  over  the  universities  at  the  capitals,  we  shall  not 
be  greatly  surprised  at  the  monstrosities  in  instruction 
to  which  the  press  now  and  then  dares  to  call  atten¬ 
tion.  Recently  the  Vyestnik  Yevropi  thus  called  at¬ 
tention  to  the  oddity  of  some  lectures  on  psychology 
which  this  spring  seriously  occupied  the  good  society  in 
St.  Petersburg.  Vladislavlef,  a  professor  of  Philosophy, 
gave  an  outline  of  psychology,  which  contained  the  fol¬ 
lowing  analysis  of  the  sentiment  of  respect:  “This  sen¬ 
timent,”  he  said,  “  increases  or  diminishes  in  proportion 
to  the  income  of  its  object.  A  man  who  has  three  thou¬ 
sand  rubles  a  year  necessarily  has  a  great  respect  for  a 
man  who  has  fifteen  thou?  lid.  And  a  man  who,  for 
example,  has  over  seven  million  rubles  a  year  (in  this 
he  seems  to  allude  to  the  Tsar)  necessarily  makes  the 
impression  of  a  colossal  greatness.  On  the  other  hand, 
poverty  engenders  indifference  or  disdain.”  He  said  all 
this  without  irony,  and  also  not  even  citing  many 
instances  of  the  fact,  but  as  the  expression  of  a  psy¬ 
chical  law. 

Where  such  a  management  and  such  instruction  are 
possible,  it  must  be  self-evident  that  the  acquisition  of 
the  higher  education  is  rendered  difficult  for  the  young 
men.  So  far  as  the  young  women  are  concerned,  the 


134 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA . 


conditions  are  even  more  unfavorable.  Although  it  has 
been  constantly  forbidden  them  to  attend  the  universi¬ 
ties  of  Russia,  to  say  nothing  of  passing  examinations 
and  taking  degrees,  still  no  young  women  in  Europe 
crave  a  scientific  education  like  those  of  Russia.  About 
ten  years  ago,  some  liberal  professors  in  St.  Petersburg 
and  others  in  Moscow,  under  the  leadership  of  Professor 
Guerrier,  established  a  kind  of  university  for  women  in 
each  city.  The  professors  of  the  universities  and  men 
eminent  for  their  literary  culture  (like  Vesselovski  and 
Storosyenko)  gave  their  time  without  pay,  and  young 
girls  from  seventeen  to  'twenty  and  upwards  came  in 
crowds  to  hear  good  lectures  on  science,  mathematics, 
history,  literature,  and  some  other  branches.  As  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  course,  these  lectures  were  neutral  in  politics. 
For  some  time,  a  dislike  for  this  course  had  been  mani¬ 
fested  on  the  part  of  the  Tsar.  For  when  the  Tsaritsa 
was  asked  to  allow  them  to  ornament  the  diplomas  not 
only  with  medallion  portraits  of  the  Tsaritsas  Catherine 
and  Elizabeth,  but  also  with  hers,  permission  was  re¬ 
fused,  so  that  it  was  necessary  to  put  the  date  in  the 
space  which  was  reserved  for  the  portrait  of  the  Tsar¬ 
itsa  Maria  Feodorovna.  A  year  ago  last  spring  the  uni¬ 
versities  for  women  received  a  blow  in  a  communication 
stating  that  they  would  be  closed  from  and  after  the 
month  of  June,  1887,  and  that  all  instruction  of  that  kind 
would  be  suspended.  The  expression  that  she  wished  to 
send  all  the  Russian  women  back  home  is,  in  Russia,  gener¬ 
ally  attributed  to  a  person  occupying  a  very  high  position. 

This  is  the  condition  in  which  the  most  intelligent 
part  of  the  youth  grow  up. 

It  was  from  feeling  that  in  such  conditions  all  exer¬ 
tion  to  attain  a  higher  position  must  fail,  that  Garshin 
has  a  novel  with  the  following  argument. 


GARSHIN’S  PARABLE. 


135 


A  palm,  which  has  been  brought  from  its  tropical 
home  to  a  conservatory  in  St.  Petersburg,  struggles 
towards  the  clear  sky  and  burning  sun  of  its  native 
land.  It  grows  on  in  the  hope  of  bursting  through  the 
glass  roof  of  the  conservatory  and  gaining  its  freedom. 
Finally,  the  wished-for  moment  comes.  The  panes  in 
the  roof  yield  to  the  pressure  of  its  branches,  the 
curled-down  plant  stretches  itself  out  into  the  clear  air 
of  the  open  day.  Then  it  meets  the  cold  wind  and  the 
damp  snow.  It  is  frozen  through,  its  crown  withers 
away,  and  the  owner  of  the  conservatory  has  the  tree 
cut  down. 


VIII. 


“  The  Russian  press !  I  am  provoked  at  tliis  ever¬ 
lasting  talk  about  the  Russian  press,”  broke  out  the 
editor  of  the  Russian  paper  having  the  widest  circula¬ 
tion.  “  There  is  simply  no  press  in  Russia.  There  are 
printing-presses  and  paper,  of  course,  and  black  marks 
on  a  white  surface  ;  there  are  editors  and  journalists,  but 
a  press  is  not  and  cannot  be  found.” 

From  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  Russian  press  cannot 
have  any  political  importance,  entirely  without  regard  to 
the  question  whether,  like  the  newspapers  in  the  depart¬ 
ments  and  some  periodicals  in  the  capitals,  it  has  to  pass 
under  the  supervision  of  the  censor  or  not. 

The  best  known  newspaper,  in  a  foreign  language,  is 
a  French  official  journal  (the  Journal  de  St.  Peters- 
bourg ) ;  next  the  two  larger  German  papers  in  St. 
Petersburg  (St.  Petersburg  Zeitung  and  the  “  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  Herald  ”) ;  and  a  small  German  sheet  in  Moscow 
(the  Moscow  Zeitung'),  the  last  being  extremely  moder¬ 
ate,  and  at  every  opportunity  only  defends  and  demon¬ 
strates  the  excellent,  admirable  relations  which  prevail 
between  Germany  and  Russia.  Besides  the  official 
government  paper,  and  a  little  sheet  written  in  a  light 
and  entertaining,  and  sometimes  rather  frivolous  style, 
but  which  has  a  very  large  circulation,  there  are  in 
St.  Petersburg  two  newspapers  which  are  generally 
read :  Nonosti  (News),  a  so-called  liberal  paper,  digni¬ 
fied  in  its  tone,  edited  by  Notovitch,  whose  best  assist- 

136 


THE  NOVOYE  VR  EM  Y  A. 


137 


ant,  in  directions  which  are  not  political,  is  the  poet 
P.  Weinberg,  the  well  known  translator  of  Heine. 
Since  the  publisher  is  of  Jewish  extraction,  this  paper 
is  continually  taxed  with  serving  the  interests  of  the 
Jews.  It  is  sober,  serious,  earnest,  supports  the  cause 
of  European  culture,  but  is  not  on  that  account  the  less 
patriotic  in  its  attitude  toward  England  and  Germany. 

With  this  paper  the  Novoye  Vremya  (the  New  Times) 
lives  in  constant  controversy.  It  is  a  well  written  jour¬ 
nal,  but  entirely  without  principle,  edited  after  the 
pattern  of  the  French  Figaro  (especially  as  this  news¬ 
paper  was  edited  in  earlier  times),  by  Suvorin,  a  literary 
man  of  business,  who  in  his  day  made  himself  renowned 
in  Russia  by  his  open  declaration  that  the  time  had 
now  come  when  literature  ought  to  step  down  from  its 
pedestal,  and  understand  that  it  is  a  commodity  like 
other  wares,  subject  to  the  same  laws  of  supply  and 
demand  as  everything  else,  and  that  there  is  no  disgrace 
in  it.  In  obedience  to  this  view,  Novoye  Vremya  drifts 
with  the  wind  ;  in  the  shortest  time  possible  attacks  and 
defends  the  same  cause  and  the  same  person,  generally 
in  incisive,  entertaining  articles.  The  newspaper  is 
more  read  than  respected.  It  is  known  that  it  is  with¬ 
out  faith  and  law  ( sans  foi  ni  loi).  From  its  nature  it 
cannot  occupy  a  leading  position,  and  its  political  influ¬ 
ence  is  absolutely  nil. 

Since  Suvorin,  besides  his  newspaper,  has  a  great  pub¬ 
lishing  house  in  Moscow,  his  literary  influence  is  neces¬ 
sarily  not  unimportant.  Many  young  liberal  authors,  for 
the  sake  of  the  honorarium,  exhibit  the  weakness  of 
putting  their  articles  or  novels  into  liis  widely  circulated 
sheet,  however  little  they  may  sympathize  with  its 
standpoint.  Suvorin  spares  no  expense  in  advertising ; 
and,  as  he  has  agents  in  all  the  large  cities,  Europe  is 


138 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


constantly  kept  informed  through  the  telegraph  bureau 
of  what  the  Novoye  Vrevnya  has  said  about  this  or  that, 
—  a  thing  in  and  for  itself  as  unimportant  as  the  barking 
of  a  dog  or  the  soughing  of  the  wind  in  the  streets  of  St. 
Petersburg,  but  which  at  a  distance  is  regarded  as  an 
affair  of  some  weight.  The  feuilleton  of  this  sheet  is 
edited  by  a  certain  Burenin,  who  is  entirely  worthy  of 
his  master.  The  other  coadjutors  take  the  tone  which 
is  given  them  by  Suvorin  and  by  him. 

About  one  of  them,  B - of,  a  foreign  author,  who 

had  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  in  St.  Petersburg, 

related  the  following  veritable  anecdote  :  “  B - of 

wrote  to  me  several  times,  while  I  was  still  at  home, 
sent  me  a  book,  and  ended  with  placing  himself  and  the 
Novoye  Vremya  at  my  disposal  on  the  occasion  of  my 
visit  to  St.  Petersburg.  Immediately  after  my  arrival 
he  called  on  me,  invited  me  to  his  house,  with  so  much 
zeal  that  he  assured  me  that  a  plate  was  ready  for  me  at 
his  table  every  day.  He  gave  a  very  favorable  report  of 
my  first  lecture,  after  having  requested  the  use  of  my 
notes  in  the  preparation  of  his  article.  Several  times 
he  expressed  the  wish  that  I  would  take  his  wife  with 
me  on  a  shopping  expedition.  His  manner  was  so  insinu¬ 
ating  as  to  affect  me  not  qirite  agreeably.  I  held  a  little 
back ;  and  when,  at  last,  after  a  renewed  invitation,  I 
indicated  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  on  that  day 
to  make  any  purchases  in  company  with  his  wife,  he 
inserted  in  his  paper  the  same  evening,  without  any 
reference  to  the  preceding  articles,  the  boldest  attack 
upon  me.  ‘  He  had  long  kept  silent,  and  watched,’  said 
the  article,  £but  at  last  so  great  a  lack  of  talent  and 
conceit  must  be  punished ;  ’  nay,  concealing  the  fact, 
known  to  him,  that  I  had  received  one  of  my  lectures 
back  from  the  censor,  so  that  I  was  obliged  to  substitute 


KA  TKOF’  S  JO  URN  A  L. 


139 


another,  unknown  in  Russia,  but  previously  delivered, 
he  charged  me  principally  with  not  being  able  to  hit 
upon  anything  new,  but  with  confining  myself  to  the 
presentation  of  old  and  well  known  stories.  ‘  The 
Russian  public,’  it  added,  ‘was  not  so  stupid  as  I  sup¬ 
posed,  nor  yet  so  ignorant.  It  is  understood  very  well 
that  in  such  circumstances  the  stranger  treats  it  like 
a  fool  in  order  to  get  his  fingers  into  its  pockets.’  ”  My 
informant  adds,  “Even  with  abundant  experience  from 
the  press  of  other  lands,  even  with  all  the  surprises  of 
the  past  which  no  one  who  lives  the  literary  life 
escapes,  the  foreigner  will  be  surprised  at  the  shameless¬ 
ness  and  corruption,  not  so  much  of  some  Russian  as  of 
some  particular  St.  Petersburg  newspapers.” 

Moscow,  like  St.  Petersburg,  has  two  large  news¬ 
papers.  One  is  liberal,  written  in  the  best  style,  and 
the  most  honorable  of  all  the  Russian  newspapers, 
Russkiya  Vyedomosti  (The  Russian  Times),  published  by 
Sobolevski,  a  quiet,  honorable,  energetic,  and  scientific 
man,  formerly  a  professor,  but  now  an  editor.  This 
daily  paper,  certainly  the  most  widely  circulated  in  Rus¬ 
sia,  has  30,000  subscribers.  Next  to  this  is  the  news¬ 
paper  hitherto  better  known  in  Western  Europe,  the 
Moskovslciya  Vyedomosti,  the  organ  of  the  lately  de¬ 
ceased  Katkof. 

Katkof  was  a  man  without  much  knowledge  and  of 
little  reading.  In  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  he 
never  read  a  single  book.  There  was  no  need  of  his 
reading  or  thinking  to  support  and  maintain  the  general 
Russification.  P>ut  he  wrote  exceedingly  well ;  he  was 
of  the  first  rank  among  the  prose  authors.  His  paper 
did  not  have  many  subscribers ;  not  a  third  part  of  what 
the  Russkiya  Vyedomosti  has.  P>ut  it  was  written  for 
a  single  reader,  who  never  skipped  a  single  number, 


140 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


his  Majesty  the  Tsar  Alexander  III.  And  voluntary 
subscribers  were  not  wanting  when  it  was  supported  by 
the  order  of  the  government.  All  the  institutions  and 
foundations  of  the  Crown,  the  schools,  courts,  etc.,  were 
bound  to  support  this  sheet. 

When  Katkof  died,  and  the  state  of  his  fortune  came 
to  light,  his  name  lost  a  large  share  of  its  glamour.  He 
left  an  astonishingly  large  fortune,  so  large  that  it  could 
not  be  explained  except  by  gifts  from  the  rich  merchants 
of  Moscow.  Katkof  had  indeed  met  their  views  by 
opposing  all  reduction  of  the  tariff.  It  also  made  a  dis¬ 
agreeable  impression  on  the  Tsar  that  he,  by  an  evasion 
of  the  law,  by  a  transfer  of  his  property  in  his  lifetime, 
cheated  the  State  of  the  succession  tax  in  addition. 

Besides  the  Moskovskiya  Vyedomosti,  which  still 
exists  but  has  lost  all  importance,  there  has  just  been 
started  another  newspaper  in  a  similar  spirit.  The 
weekly  newspaper  Grazhdanin  (The  Citizen)  has  be¬ 
come  a  daily,  and,  according  to  report,  the  government 
will  grant  it  a  large  annual  subsidy.  It  is  to  be  edited 
by  the  well  known  author  of  poor  novels,  Prince  Me- 
shcherski,  a  re-actionist  and  tale-bearer,  is  to  have  the 
same  drift  as  Katkof’s  paper,  only  with  out-and-out 
servility  instead  of  talent. 

The  more  important  monthlies  play  a  greater  part 
than  in  any  other  land,  for  the  rules  of  the  censorship 
allow  much  to  appear  in  a  periodical  that  would  be  for¬ 
bidden  in  a  book  form.  Nevertheless  in  the  last  ten 
years  several  of  the  best  Russian  reviews,  like  the 
Dyelo,  for  example,  have  been  suppressed.  Every  month 
there  appears  a  number  of  each  of  the  large  periodicals, 
as  thick  as  two  numbers  of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes 
together. 

The  best  known  is  Vyestnik  Yevropi  (The  European 


MON  TFIL  Y  PER  IODIC  A  LS. 


141 


Messenger),  edited  by  Stassulevitch,  a  stately  and  finely 
cultivated  man  about  sixty  years  old,  formerly  a  univer¬ 
sity  teacher,  now  occupied  with  economical  and  hygienic 
questions,  such  as  the  improvement  of  the  river  water 
in  St.  Petersburg.  His  periodical  is  the  organ  of  correct 
liberalism.  It  has  a  circulation  of  7,000.  Some  great 
authors,  like  Gontcharof,  contribute  to  this  maga¬ 
zine,  which  is  at  the  present  time  publishing  his  life; 
it  possesses  in  Arsénief  a  clever,  scientific  critic, 
affable  towards  the  younger  generation.  It  relies  on 
a  circle  of  men  among  whom  the  literary  historians 
Pypin  and  Spasovitch  are  well  known.  The  latter  has 
already  been  spoken  of.  The  former,  who  originally 
belonged  to  Tcheruuishevski’s  group  and  passed  for  a 
radical,  but  escaped  accusation,  as  author  of  the  great 
work,  “  The  History  of  the  Slavic  Literature,”  in  which 
the  pressure  laid  on  by  the  censor  is  felt  all  the  way 
through,  has  presented  a  profound  and  real  representa¬ 
tion  of  the  intellectual  struggle  for  existence,  and  liter¬ 
ary  productions  of  the  different  Slavic  races.  Unfortu¬ 
nately  the  most  important  part,  the  history  of  the 
literature  of  Great  Russia,  is  still  wanting.  The  two 
eminent  advocates  and  publicists  Koni  and  Utin  are 
also  coadjutors  of  the  Vyestnik  Yevropi.  The  former 
is  best  known  as  an  author  by  his  interesting  treat¬ 
ment  of  “  Dostoyevski  as  an  analyst  of  crime ;  ”  the 
other,  by  the  series  of  articles  published  in  the  periodical 
under  the  title  “  From  Bulgaria,”  which  was  forbidden 
publication  in  book  form  by  the  censor. 

By  the  side  of  this  great  St.  Petersburg  review  stands 
Goltzef’s  Moscow  periodical,  Russkaya  My  si  (The  Rus¬ 
sian  Thought),  as  suggested  above,  conducted  in  the 
same  spirit  as  Russlciya  Vyedomosti,  and  supported  by 
the  contributors  to  that  daily  paper.  It  has  10,000  sub¬ 
scribers. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


14  2 


Finally  there  is  the  Secern  i  Vyestnik  (The  Northern 
Messenger),  with  4.S00  subscribers,  published  by  a  lady, 
Miss  Evreiuova,  hitherto  the  most  sprightly  and  most 
modern  of  these  periodicals,  but  which  has  now  met 
with  a  very  great  loss,  because  the  celebrated  and  influ¬ 
ential  critic  Mikhailovski  has  separated  from  it,  and  may 
possibly  carry  a  staff  of  sympathizers  with  him.  This 
periodical,  on  account  of  the  advanced  views  of  several 
of  the  contributors,  is  suspected  by  the  government  and 
placed  under  the  censor.  Miss  Evreiuova  is  a  lady  in 
the  forties,  with  a  stern  face  and  gray  hair.  She  has 
spent  several  years  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic  near 
Montenegro,  in  the  study  of  the  old  Slavic  conditions, 
has  copied  and  published  manuscripts  written  in  old 
Slavic.  Having  used  up  her  property  in  this  work,  she 
assumed  the  publication  of  Severni  Vyestnik  as  a  means 
of  subsistence.  She  is  a  Russian  slave  to  duty,  with  a 
good  but  not  discriminating  intellect. 

Her  circle  of  contributors  has  hitherto  chiefly  con¬ 
sisted  of  bright  literary  Bohemians,  who  in  Russia  are 
utterly  poor,  hungry,  and  in  debt,  the  older  among  them 
generally  unhappily  married.  They  live  exclusively 
with  each  other  in  a  world  by  themselves,  —  sadly 
enough,  almost  without  exception,  addicted  to  drink,  and 
utterly  wanting  in  nervous  equipoise  on  account  of  their 
many  years  of  misery  and  exile.  Among  them  there  are 
still  several  eminent  authors,  who  have  succeeded  in 
passing  through  the  anxieties  of  a  literary  life  and  of 
exile  with  unimpaired  bodily  and  mental  health. 

There  is  Pratopopof,  who  long  ago  contributed  to  the 
“Annals  of  our  Fatherland,”  with  great  talent  and 
spirit.  Then  he  was  exiled,  and  is  now  back  again. 
There  is  Korolenko,  who.  broad-shouldered  and  boyish, 
has  returned  from  Yakutsk.  There  was  Garshin,  who, 


GL  YEU  USE  YEN  SKI. 


143 


though  subject  to  repeated  attacks  of  insanity,  has  pub¬ 
lished  fine  and  vigorous  novels.  He  was  greatly  under 
the  influence  of  Tolstoi,  but  nevertheless  has  his  own 
stamp  of  desperate  pessimism.  There  was  the  leader 
Mikhailovslci  himself,  in  his  style  inclined  to  the  imita¬ 
tion  of  the  satirical  tone  of  Saltykof,  as  a  critic  audacious 
and  wily,  who  is  capable  of  placing  a  not  inconsiderable 
store  of  learning  and  remarkable  ingenuity  at  the  service 
of  the  opposition.  There  is  Zlatovratski,  who  describes 
almost  ideal  peasants,  and,  himself  resembling  a  poor 
workman  of  the  peasant  rank,  poor  as  Job,  with  a  great 
flock  of  children,  and  such  a  slave  to  alcohol  that  he  does 
not  any  longer  dare  to  go  out  in  the  streets  alone. 
Finally  there  is  Glyeb  Uspyenski,  a  great  and  shining 
talent,  far  more  important  than  his  brother,  Nikolai 
Uspyenski,  whose  works  were  translated  into  Danish 
by  Thor  Lange.  In  Glyeb,  who  is  familiarly  called  by 
his  first  name,  the  advanced  youth  see  their  apostle. 
Unfortunately  he  too  has  fallen  so  low  as  to  spend  six 
or  seven  hours  on  a  stretch  in  the  dram-shops  of  St. 
Petersburg,  but  his  abilities  have  not  been  impaired  by 
his  irregular  life  outside  of  the  pale  of  society.  His 
works,  consisting  of  nothing  but  short  stories,  already  fill 
a  long  row  of  volumes.  At  the  present  time  he  presents 
in  novels  and  articles  only  the  woman  of  the  working 
class,  and  he  works  over  and  elucidates  the  idea,  which 
haunts  him,  that  this  woman  has  no  right  to  be  a  mother, 
since  she  cannot  support  her  child.  He  pictures  the 
loose  morals  of  factory  life,  and  the  unmerited  disgrace 
which  falls  upon  the  woman  who  errs ;  but  he  also 
writes  for  the  working-women,  with  the  design  of  im¬ 
pressing  upon  them  that  they,  for  the  sake  of  the  chil¬ 
dren,  ought  not  to  become  mothers. 

Glyeb  Uspyenski  is  the  genuine  literary  gypsy.  He 


144 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


borrows  and  gets  along  without  troubling  himself  about 
money.  He  cannot  see  a  needy  person  without  giving 
him  all  the  money  he  has  with  him,  and  often  more ; 
for  he  borrows  of  one  to  give  to  another.  The  admira¬ 
tion  which  is  given  him  in  wide  circles  prevents  any  one 
being  angry  with  him  for  any  irregularity.  He  is 
forgiven  with  the  words,  “We  must  remember  it  is 
Glyeb.” 

Apart  from  a  few  of  the  most  eminent  of  these  authors, 
it  may  be  said  that  what  is  common  to  all  these  younger 
and  older  authors  is  propensity  to  drink,  laxity  in  money 
matters,  lack  of  fundamental  culture,  and  an  every-day 
dull  melancholy.  Several  of  them  are  utterly  ruined  by 
the  homeless  life,  with  its  debauches  of  ale,  champagne, 
and  women.  The  loss  of  all  illusions  as  to  the  attain¬ 
ment  of  freedom  and  happiness,  the  feeling  of  boundless 
disappointment  in  life,  and  of  a  lack  of  means  to  do  any¬ 
thing  for  the  people  or  the  country,  brings  them  to 
despair,  and  to  seek  to  forget  the  despair  in  a  life  of 
stupefaction. 

It  is  clear  that  these  writers  know  only  a  very  small 
part  of  society,  and  possess  only  a  restricted  and  peculiar 
intellectual  culture.  And  as  they  have  no  acquaintance 
with  the  higher  classes  of  society,  from  which  they  sus¬ 
piciously  keep  aloof,  so  these  classes  have  no  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  them.  Towards  society  in  St.  Petersburg 
they  occupy  the  position  of  pariahs.  At  best  their  works 
only  are  known.  The  authors  as  persons  have  no  exist¬ 
ence  for  the  fine  gentlemen  and  ladies. 

Even  the  oldest  and  greatest  of  them  live  entirely 
secluded,  and  almost  every  one  of  them  has  a  wife,  who 
does  not  understand  him  at  all,  and  with  whom  it  is 
only  with  difficulty  that  he  continues  to  live  ;  yet  the 
author  makes  all  sorts  of  concessions  from  his  good 


OUli  POMPADOURS. 


145 


nature.  When  a  near  friend  one  day  said  to  one  of  the 
most  important,  an  old  man,  “How  can  a  stupid  woman 
get  such  a  control  over  a  man  ?  ”  he  answered,  “  Only  a 
stupid  woman.  A  man  who  has  something  to  do  has  no 
weapons  against  stupidity,  which  tires,  nags,  always  be¬ 
gins  over,  and  never  knows  when  it  is  beaten.  An 
amiable  and  intellectual  woman  would  never  gain  such 
an  influence  over  her  husband.” 

The  old  SaltyJcof  (Shchedrin),  the  satirist,  the  most 
popular  author  of  liberal  Russia,  at  the  present  time  is 
lying  ill  of  the  gout,  and  it  is  hardly  likely  that  he  will 
recover.  In  the  eyes  of  those  who  value  the  tendencies 
in  their  poetical  works  more  than  that  which  is  essen¬ 
tially  poetical  therein,  he  is  a  greater  author  than  Tolstoi. 
Of  all  the  authors  now  living,  he  is  certainly  the  one 
who  has  most  consistently  made  use  of  irony  as  the 
style  of  prose  writing.  In  his  whole  form  he  is  the 
unconscious  product  of  the  circumstances.  With  a  pas¬ 
sion  like  his  for  justice  and  for  civil  freedom  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  government  on  the  other,  all  criticism  of 
the  situation  must  necessarily  assume  the  character  of 
pleasantry.  But  what  pleasantry  !  Read  as  an  illustra¬ 
tion  his  book,  “  Our  Pompadours.” 

By  a  remarkable  change  in  the  meaning  of  the  word, 
they  mean  in  the  daily  speech  in  Russia  by  the  word 
Pompadour,  a  man  who  governs  by  the  aid  of  the  rule 
of  his  mistress.  In  Saltykof  s  work  provincial  governors 
of  this  kind  are  characterized  by  the  dozen. 

As  an  idea  of  his  method  of  representation,  take  this 
fragment  of  a  dialogue  :  The  clerk  is  met  in  the  morn¬ 
ing  at  the  office  by  his  superior,  an  official  under  the 
governor,  with  the  exclamation,  “  Do  you  know  that  our 
fellow  has  been  dismissed  ?  ”  —  “  Of  whom  does  your 
Excellency  condescend  to  speak  to  me  ?  ”  —  “  Of  whom  ? 


146 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Of  our  little  Pompadour,  naturally.”  —  “At  tliis  answer,” 
relates  the  clerk,  “  my  heart  stood  still  in  my  breast. 
Little  by  little,  it  began  to  beat  again ;  I  thought  that 
Ave  should  not  be  left  Avithout  a  head.”  —  “  Does  your 
Excellency  know  who  has  been  named  as  his  successor?” 
—  “A  certain  Udarin.”  —  “A  general  ?  ”  —  “  Yes,  a  gen¬ 
eral.”  1 —  “Of  Avhat  kind,  if  I  may  ask?”  —  “A  mam¬ 
mal.”  —  “  We  Avere  both  thoughtful,”  continues  the  clerk. 
“  Then  I  went  out  into  the  market,  and  told  the  neA\rs  to 
some  muzhiks  Avho  stood  there.  ‘Do  you  know  that  his 
Excellency  Aufimof  is  no  longer  our  governor  ?  ’  —  ‘  Bah, 
what  of  it !  ’  The  peasant  had  scarcely  uttered  these 
words  before  my  hand  had  given  a  sound  whack  on  his 
cheek.  ‘  But  a  neAV  one  is  coming  !  a  new  one  is  com¬ 
ing  !  ’  belloAved  the  peasant.  I  continued  to  strike  —  I 
heard  it  not.  At  last,  it  fell  like  deAV  upon  my  soul :  ‘  A 
neAV  one  is  coming.’  That  Avas  the  consolation.  I  gave 
the  peasant  ten  kopeks.” 

Another  sketch  describes  Iioav  the  clerk  one  fine  morn¬ 
ing,  Avhen  the  neAvly  installed  governor  gives  a  free  rein 
to  his  ideas  and  dreams  about  his  coming  administra¬ 
tion,  alloAvs  himself  the  remark  that  the  law  sets  certain 
bounds  to  these  fantasies  ;  as,  for  instance,  as  to  whip¬ 
ping.  There  are  cases  where  the  law  declares  it  to  be 
useful,  and  others  in  Avhich  it  is  forbidden.  “You  will 
then  have  the  goodness  to  inform  me  when,  and  Avhen 
not,”  said  the  governor,  ironically.  —  “Not  I,  your  High¬ 
ness,  but  the  law.”  —  “That  is  becoming  interesting.” 
The  governor,  it  appears  further,  had  long  known  that 
there  Avere  laws,  but  he  always  conceived  them  as  bound 
books  arranged  in  a  case.  It  Avas  for  him  the  order,  — 
lawful  order.  When  he,  on  the  other  hand,  saAV  these 

1  In  Russia,  there  are  civil  as  well  as  military  generals,  and  just  as 
many  of  them. 


PA  TRON  AGE. 


147 


same  books  lying  about  among  others  on  a  table  in  a 
room,  that  was  disorder.  But  what  he  did  not  know  was 
that  these  same  laws  allowed  him  certain  acts  and  for¬ 
bade  him  others.  He  regarded  them  simply  as  a  hymn, 
composed  in  the  interests  of  the  small  pompadours,  for 
their  honor,  to  serve  them  for  recreation.  Since  he  was 
modest  by  nature,  and  blushed  whenever  he  heard  any 
one  echo  his  praises,  it  can  be  understood  that  he  did 
not  care  to  fumble  in  the  laws.  When  it  now  dawned 
upon  the  governor  that  the  law  forbids  him  to  sentence 
the  bigwig  Proshorof,  whom  he  was  burning  to  let  feel 
his  wrath,  to  a  good  sound  whipping,  he  became  very 
uneasy.  It  soothed  him  very  little  that,  according  to  the 
clerk’s  disclosure,  he  always  had  the  recourse  of  having 
him  flogged  secretly  and  without  witnesses.  And  now 
his  state  of  mind  at  this  discovery  is  portrayed.  “  He 
had  never  yet  felt  such  an  annoyance.  It  seemed  to  him 
as  if  he  had  fallen  into  a  danger,  and  as  if  he  heard  an 
inward  challenge  not  to  be  a  coward,  but  to  show  per¬ 
sonal  courage.”  And  he  shouted  with  the  voice  of  a 
commander  :  “  Let  Proshorof  be  flogged  on  the  spot  — 
publicly.” 

A  favorite  subject  for  Shchedrin’s  satire  is  the  system 
of  patronage,  which  flourishes  in  Russia  as  nowhere  else. 
Every  kind  of  patronage  is  possible  here,  if  you  have 
connections  among  the  superior  officers.  A  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  family  of  my  acquaintance,  who  were  going  down 
to  Southern  Russia,  had  a  whole  railway  carriage  sent 
up  from  Orel,  and  travelled  in  it  from  St.  Petersburg 
down  to  the  door  of  their  country  house.  It  even  hap¬ 
pened  to  me  that  one  night  on  the  railroad  at  Smolensk 
a  separate  carriage,  with  a  bed  ready  for  use,  was  placed 
at  my  disposal  by  the  station-master,  who  had  received 
an  order  to  that  effect  from  his  superior,  while  the  occu- 


148 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


pants,  in  spite  of  my  protest,  were  turned  out  and  placed 
elsewhere.  “You  need  not  say  anything  against  it,”  said 
the  station-master  to  me.  “You  may  be  sure  that  there  is 
not  one  of  them  who  has  paid  for  his  ticket.”  I  inquired 
of  some  of  the  bystanders,  and  it  appeared  that  such 
was  the  fact.  Thus,  on  this  occasion,  the  higher  patron¬ 
age  did  not  violate  other  privileges  than  those  which 
were  acquired  by  the  exercise  of  inferior  authority.  An¬ 
other  favorite  subject  for  attack  with  Shchedrin  is  the 
system  of  bribery,  which  flourishes  in  consequence  of 
the  low  intellectual  standpoint  and  poor  pay  of  the  offi¬ 
cials.  That  these  men  are  stupid  and  servile  is  chiefly 
because,  as  a  rule,  they  must  rise  in  the  service  from  the 
lower  ranks.  They  are  frequently  invalids  when  they 
approach  towards  power  and  influence.  As  the  phrase 
goes,  “My  uncle,  the  general,  had  a  fit  of  apoplexy,  so 
he  became  a  senator ;  he  lost  his  sight,  and  then  he  was 
made  a  member  of  the  council  of  the  empire.  If  he  can 
only  have  a  new  accident  he  will  die  as  minister.”  Brib¬ 
ery  naturally  has  its  root  in  the  fact  that  the  salaries  are 
so  low.  They  regard  the  drink  money  which  is  given  to 
the  officials  about  as  we  do  the  honorarium  which  is 
given  to  the  clergy,  although  the  latter  also  have  their 
salaries  from  the  State.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  the  officials  to  the  treasury  of  the  State  is  often 
so  untrustworthy.  From  that  comes  the  Russian  prov¬ 
erb,  “All  steal,  except  Christ,”  with  the  blasphemous 
addition,  “  and  he  would  if  his  hands  were  not  nailed  to 
the  cross.”  Or  this  proverb,  “  If  you  are  going  to  talk 
to  an  official,  you  must  talk  rubles  to  him.”  All  these 
customs  have  one  good  side,  that  the  officials,  just  because 
of  their  lax  morals,  sell  the  common  people  an  otherwise 
unattainable  freedom  :  tolerance,  impunity  for  the  inno¬ 
cent,  and  free  passage  for  men  and  books.  But  it  will 


RUSSIAN  SCHOLARS. 


149 


be  understood  that  this  circumstance  does  not  make  the 
government  any  more  worthy  of  respect. 

An  administration  like  this  naturally  invites  a  satiri¬ 
cal,  humorous  treatment  like  Shchedrin’s.  If  you  com¬ 
pare  his  satire  with  that  of  a  Polish  author  of  the  same 
period,  like  Svientochovski,  you  will  lind  that,  while  the 
satire  of  the  Pole  is  almost  always  anti-clerical,  and  is 
weakened  in  its  effects  upon  the  masses  by  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  anything  unpatriotic,  yet  in  this  direction  the 
Russian  satire  has  its  sting  unsheathed  and  its  spear-head 
tempered  and  glowing  like  that  which  was  plunged  into 
the  eye  of  Cyclops  by  Odysseus. 

The  most  important  of  the  contributors  to  the  news¬ 
papers  and  periodicals  have  now  been  mentioned.  Next 
comes  a  whole  long  list  of  authors,  historical,  critical, 
philosophical,  and  anthropological,  —  whose  learning  is 
irreproachable,  whose  style  is  a  trifle  professorial,  and 
who  as  a  rule  lack  inspiration. 

Among  the  historians,  jurists,  and  critics  who  have 
already  been  mentioned,  as  well  as  outside  of  these  cir¬ 
cles,  the  foreigner  meets  many  who  at  first  make  this 
impression  upon  him :  They  remind  him  of  the  German 
scholars,  particularly  as  they  were  a  generation  ago. 
They  have  solidity,  earnestness,  and  a  little  heaviness. 
A  Russian  philologian  is,  indeed,  only  exceptionally 
(like  Korsh,  in  Moscow)  crammed  with  learning  like  a 
German,  but  to  compensate  for  this  these  scholars  are 
usually  able  to  clothe  their  thoughts  in  a  much  more 
available  form.  They  do  not  have  the  boyish  innocence, 
which  at  seventy  unites  red  cheeks  and  light  blue  eyes, 
as  I  have  seen  in  the  old  German  philologian  Fleischer. 
But  they  do  have  —  especially  the  Little  Russians  — 
breadth,  good  nature,  which  smiles  in  great  dimples  on  a 
brown  cheek,  roguishness,  as  a  clever  woman  is  roguish. 


150 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


They  are  impregnated  with  the  modesty  of  genuine  and 
refined  culture.  While  the  German,  whether  he  has  a 
better  or  poorer  opinion  of  himself,  always  —  and  with 
a  certain  degree  of  right  —  acts  upon  the  theory  of  the 
conceded  superiority  of  German  science,  the  Russian 
often  places  the  information  and  knowledge  of  the  for¬ 
eigner  above  his  own.  The  more  he  knows,  the  less  con¬ 
tented  he  is  in  general  with  the  development  of  science 
in  Russia. 

Among  the  scientists  and  authors  in  Russia  there  are 
men  of  great  originality,  men  whose  whole  being  shows 
how  much  originality  is  suppressed  by  the  Russian  rule. 
Such  a  man  is  the  naturalist  Mikluho-Maklay. 

He  is  not  only  a  distinguished  anthropologist,  but 
king  of  the  Australasian  island  which  bears  his  name. 
He  came  back  to  St.  Petersburg  with  his  wife,  an  Eng¬ 
lishwoman  from  Sidney,  to  publish  a  great  work.  As 
king  he  had  the  right  on  his  island  to  have  one  hundred 
and  forty-seven  native  wives,  but,  according  to  his  own 
account,  he  has  not  availed  himself  of  it.  He  is  a  fine 
man,  with  white  hair,  nearly  fifty  years  old,  with  a 
splendid  head  and  young  eyes.  He  is  such  a  sufferer 
from  the  gout  that  he  lies  all  day  long  stretched  out  on 
a  deer-skin.  He  loves  as  his  place  of  residence  only  the 
island  Maklay  and  the  Happy  Men’s  Islands,  which  sur¬ 
round  it. 

The  following  little  trait  is  genuine  Russian :  On  his 
table  stands  a  lamp,  made  of  the  skull  of  a  woman  he 
once  loved,  a  young  girl  whom  he  nursed  in  the  hospital 
when  as  a  young  man  he  was  studying  medicine.  Above 
the  skull  is  an  oil-receiver  and  above  this  a  green 
lamp-shade.  By  the  light  of  this  lamp  he  does  his  work 
in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Probably  it  is  only  a  Russian 
that  would  rather  linger  over  the  skull  of  his  mistress 


gontchar6f. 


151 


than  her  portrait,  and  only  a  Russian  who  would  turn  it 
to  that  use.  Even  the  eccentricity  of  an  Englishman 
would  hardly  go  to  that  extent. 

Maklay  detests  and  despises  Giers.  He  had  long 
sought  in  vain  from*,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
for  permission  to  hoist  the  Russian  flag  over  his  island, 
without  being  able  to  obtain  the  concession  he  sought 
for.  Then,  one  fine  day,  Bismarck  caused  the  German 
flag  to  be  hoisted.  Maklay  telegraphed  to  Giers.  He 
replied :  “  We  shall  protect  you,  but  no  violence  !  ”  As 
if  Maklay,  with  his  poor  uncivilized  subjects,  could  use 
violence  against  the  German  navy.  This  man  has  thus 
become  a  German  subject. 

Originality  is  most  strongly  marked  as  a  peculiarity 
among  other  leading  men  in  science  and  literature 
in  Russia.  What  grandiose  forms  it  has  assumed  in 
Tolstoi  is  well  known,  but  in  him,  as  is  also  well 
known,  it  has  a  religious  motive.  In  old  Gontcharof, 
on  the  contrary,  who  at  an  early  period  did  his  best 
work  in  “  Oblomof,”  it  has  by  a  comparative  barren¬ 
ness  of  many  years,  and  by  an  effeminacy  nursed  by 
the  great  admiration  he  has  received,  reached  a  height 
which  renders  social  intercourse  with  him  difficult. 

During  the  winter,  he  had  promised  to  read  a  novel 
which  he  had  written  for  the  illustrated  weekly  news¬ 
paper  Niva,  in  a  house  where  he  is  a  welcome  and 
honored  guest.  The  sight  of  a  lady  whom  he  did  not 
know,  and  who  had  been  invited  to  be  present,  so  upset 
him  that  he  declared  that  he  would  not  read  at  all.  A 
strange  countenance,  though  young  and  pretty,  was 
enough  to  make  his  anger  disconcert  him.  The  follow¬ 
ing  little  trait  shows  the  irritable  passion  in  him,  which 
seems  to  be  an  outcrop  of  a  genuine  Russian  rudeness 
at  the  bottom  of  his  character:  Turgenief  and  he  had 


152 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


had  a  kindred  idea  of  a  novel  and  had  talked  it  over 
with  each  other.  Turgenief  published  his  novel  first. 
It  is  the  one  with  the  title  “A  Nest  of  Nobles.”1 
Gontcharof  reads  the  novel,  becomes  furiously  exas¬ 
perated,  sees  Turgenief  on  the  street,  and  runs  after 
him  shouting,  “  Stop,  thief !  stop,  thief  !  ”  Even  now, 
when  Turgenief’s  name  is  mentioned  in  his  presence,  he 
foams  with  rage. 

It  is  evidently  not  easy  to  characterize  the  public  to 
which  the  Russian  newspapers  and  periodicals  address 
themselves  throughout  the  empire.  It  is  too  much  scat¬ 
tered  ;  and  it  is  far  more  difficult  than  in  the  world  of 
readers  of  other  countries  for  it  to  gain  an  expression 
and  receive  examination  through  “  the  voice  of  the 
people.”  Nevertheless,  by  many  indications  we  can 
conclude  that  it  is  docile  in  a  high  degree,  unprejudiced, 
and  easily  acted  upon.  The  quality  of  a  thorough  appro¬ 
priation  of  that  which  is  read  ought  to  be  weaker  than 
in  the  principal  countries  of  Europe,  but  the  capacity  to 
receive  is,  without  doubt,  greater.  The  enthusiasm  of 
the  female  sex  is  especially  great. 

In  the  provincial  towns  a  caricature  of  this  peculiarity 
is  very  often  met  with.  I  saw  a  lady  from  Orel,  “  still 
young,”  bedecked  and  powdered,  who  passed  as  the 
literary  oracle  of  the  town.  She  was  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  Richepin,  and  quoted  boldly  :  — 

L' amour  que  je  sens,  V amour  qui  me  cuit, 

Ce  n'estpas  V amour  chaste  et  platonique, 

Sorbet  å  la  neige,  etc. 

It  was  well  meant,  and  in  and  for  itself  did  not  show 
bad  taste,  but  was  exceedingly  unbecoming.  Another 
1  Also  published  with  the  English  title  “  Lisa.” 


INFATUATION  FOR  POETS. 


153 


lady  from  Kharkof,  old  and  stiff,  was,  in  her  own  opin¬ 
ion,  the  source  of  refinement  for  the  place.  She  insti¬ 
tuted  readings  of  the  masterpieces  of  Russian  literature 
for  the  common  people,  was  also  a  writer,  was  loud- 
voiced,  noisy,  knew  everything  that  was  printed,  —  liter¬ 
ary  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers  and  toes. 

It  is  also  true  that  among  the  Slavic  people  there  is 
seen  more  often  than  in  other  places  that  kind  of  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  a  poet  or  author  which  makes  a  woman  worship 
him  for  her  whole  life.  It  is  hardly  an  accident  that 
the  lady  who  for  twenty  years  continued  in  uninter¬ 
rupted  correspondence  with  Balzac,  and  at  last  married 
him,  was  a  Pole,  Mine.  Hanska,  of  the  renowned  family 
of  Ezewuski.  Her  daughter  married  a  Mniszek. 

In  our  time  in  St.  Petersburg,  a  lady  of  a  good  family 
has  been  seen  to  leave  her  husband  and  her  home  to  run 
away  with  the  poet  Nadson,  then  mortally  ill,  and  nurse 
him  till  his  death ;  and  she  now  lives  only  in  his 
memory  and  for  his  fame.  This  lady’s  feelings  for  the 
poet,  and  her  worship  of  him,  were  cruelly  made  sport 
of  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  and  after  his  death, 
although  it  is,  nevertheless,  ethnograpliically  significant, 
because  it  shows  how  strong  the  faith  is  in  the  highest 
literary  enthusiasm  in  Russia. 

Some  months  after  Nadson’s  death,  his  fair  friend 
published  a  somewhat  comprehensive  correspondence 
between  the  poet  and  a  lady  of  distinction,  an  anony¬ 
mous  countess,  who  had  written  to  him  without  ever 
having  seen  him  or  having  made  his  acquaintance  per¬ 
sonally.  The  letters  of  the  woman  are  fine  but  gro¬ 
tesque.  According  to  all  indications,  a  young,  beautiful, 
aristocratically  educated  woman,  not  long  married,  had 
apparently  fallen  in  love  with  Nadson  without  ever 
having  met  him,  only  from  reading  his  poetry  and  seeing 


154 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


his  portrait.  The  exchange  of  letters  lasted  for  seven 
months.  Her  letters  were  full  of  fire  and  constantly 
more  passionate.  His  answers  were  not  without  tender¬ 
ness,  yet  calm  and  comparatively  cold,  although  it  can 
be  seen  he  had  been  much  moved  by  this  wonderful  love, 
which  came  to  him  so  unsought  and  unexpected.  Then 
he  dies.  Shortly  after,  according  to  the  preface  of  the 
editress,  the  fair  writer  of  the  letters  also  died,  but  not 
until  she  had  obtained  from  her  husband  his  word  of 
honor  that  lie  would  give  his  consent  to  the  publica¬ 
tion  not  only  of  the  letters  which  she  had  received 
from  the  poet,  but  of  those  which  she  herself  had 
written. 

For  several  months  this  correspondence  was  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  the  attention  and  sympathy  of  the  Russian 
reading  world.  Then  it  was  discovered,  as  had  been 
first  suggested  in  the  féuilleton  of  a  newspaper  as  a 
derisive  conjecture,  that  the  poet  and  his  fair  friend 
had  been  the  victims  of  a  bold  forgery.  From  what 
motive  it  is  uncertain,  but  a  lady  who  frequented  the 
house,  at  first  continually  entertained  the  friend  with 
accounts  of  a  certain  countess  of  her  acquaintance,  who 
lived  in  a  state  of  hero-worship  for  Hudson.  Then  she 
began  to  bring  letters,  said  that  she  was  willing  to  carry 
back  the  answers,  and  thus  for  more  than  half  a  year 
had  kept  the  intrigue  on  foot.  First  she  was  compelled 
to  admit  that  the  countess  did  not  die —  for  the  very  goo  1 
reason  that  she  had  never  lived  ;  then  she  confessed  that 
she  had  fabricated  all  the  anonymous  protestations  of 
love.  It  is  unimportant  whether  her  motive  had  been 
her  desire  to  make  herself  interesting,  a  disposition  to 
mystify,  or  only  a  mania  for  romancing  and  a  vigorous 
imagination.  The  only  thing  that  is  significant  about  it 
is  that  the  whole  of  the  Russian  public  found  nothing 


AUTHORS’  REWARDS. 


155 


unusual  or  incredible  in  such  a  personal  passion,  evoked 
by  black  on  white,  without  personal  influences. 

What  is  still  more  remarkable,  you  will  not  infre¬ 
quently  find  in  the  men  a  similarly  exalted  nature, 
readily  receptive  of  literary  enthusiasm.  I  think  it  is 
in  unison  with  the  fact  that  certain  types,  among  the 
educated  Russians  especially,  have  an  uncommonly  great 
inclination  to  cultivate  a  life  of  emotion.  J ust  so  far 
as,  hy  aid  of  the  life  and  literature,  one  can  comprehend 
a  domain,  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  penetrate,  they  seem 
to  fall  more  deeply  in  love  and  with  more  reverence 
than  in  our  time  is  the  rule  in  other  countries.  The 
very  young  Russian  expects  a  kind  of  spiritual  aid  and 
salvation  from  the  woman  he  loves.  The  older  man, 
when  in  love,  tries  to  supply  his  wants  by  sustained 
homage.  It  is  the  same  propensity  to  worship  which 
leads  the  men  of  the  lower  classes  in  hordes  to  the 
religious  sects  and  mystics.  And  it  is  this  which  in  the 
domain  of  literature  becomes  an  exquisite  sensibility. 

In  spite  of  the  great  size  of  the  empire,  authorship  is 
not  economically  remunerative  in  Russia.  Except  some 
of  the  greatest  poets,  and  some  journalists  without  con¬ 
science,  no  one  earns  money  there  by  his  labor  with  his 
pen.  But  in  a  deeper  sense,  perhaps,  in  no  other  place 
is  it  better  rewarded  to  expose  one’s  emotions  and 
thoughts  in  an  article,  an  essay,  or  a  larger  book.  The 
author  is  understood  by  great  groups  of  people  with 
a  cordiality,  and  is  appropriated  with  an  intensity  and 
devotion  which  are  exceptional  elsewhere. 

Everything  there  which  can  quench  the  thirst,  the 
burning  intellectual  thirst,  is  absorbed  like  dew-drops 
on  an  arid  soil. 


IX. 


We  had  driven  out  to  a  large  restaurant  outside  of 
Moscow  to  hear  the  gypsies  sing  and  see  them  dance. 
Accompanied  by  the  male  members  of  the  families,  they 
come  in  crowds,  with  the  chief  of  the  tribe  at  the  head, 
into  the  room  where  people  sit  and  eat  in  the  evening, 
and  sing  a  series  of  wild,  wonderfully  sonorous  songs. 
Several  of  the  young  girls  dance ;  a  dance  which  had 
nothing  European  in  it,  a  dance  for  which  only  the  free 
space  of  a  square  between  the  chair  and  the  table  is 
required,  because  the  dancer,  in  a  contracted  place, 
moves  every  fibre  of  her  body  while  in  apparent  repose. 
This  pantomime,  which  is  a  whirlwind  within  these 
limits,  is  Asiatic  or  African.  The  song,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  which  the  Russians  take  great  pleasure  in  listen¬ 
ing,  barbaric  as  it  sounds,  is  less  original.  If  several 
of  the  melodies  are  really  gypsy  tunes,  still  the  mass  of 
them  are,  in  fact,  Russian  national  songs,  which  the 
gypsies  have  appropriated  and  made  their  own.  And 
the  language  which  they  sing  is  Russian.  Evidently  the 
musical  taste  of  the  Russian  peasant,  the  poetic  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  Russian  national  songs,  have  set  their  own 
stamp  upon  the  spirit  of  this  foreign  race  so  insuscep¬ 
tible  to  external  influences,  so  that  the  Russian,  who  seeks 
among  the  gypsies  for  that  which  is  unlike  himself,  for 
the  strange  and  the  new,  unknown  to  himself,  finds  not 
a  little  of  his  own. 

These  were  the  thoughts  which  the  grotesque  song 

156 


EARLY  LOG  HOUSES. 


157 


and  dance  first  awakened  in  me,  and  when  they  were  ex¬ 
pressed  they  led  by  a  connection  of  thought  to  a  conver¬ 
sation  about  the  Russian  peculiarity  and  power  of  assimi¬ 
lation  in  architecture  and  the  plastic  art.  This  started 
many  ideas,  and  now,  after  the  lapse  of  a  year,  brings 
me  to  giving  such  an  account  as  I  can  of  Russia’s  artistic 
originality  in  the  past  and  in  the  present. 

The  Russians  early  showed  originality  in  the  art  of 
building.  While  the  Scandinavians  hewed  the  tree  in 
order  to  make  their  oldest  log-houses,  the  Russians  placed 
the  trunks  of  the  trees  one  above  the  other,  and  fastened 
them  at  their  outer  ends,  so  as  to  make  walls.  We  do 
the  Russians  injustice,  therefore,  when,  without  further 
investigation,  we  call  their  art  of  building  Byzantine, 
for  the  Byzantine  art  has  in  its  forms  not  the  least  sug¬ 
gestion  of  a  previous  log-building.  It  was  only  in  the 
eleventh  century  that  the  Russians  began  to  erect 
churches  after  the  Byzantine  types,  and  even  then  they 
ornamented  them  with  Asiatic  and  Slavic  elements. 

The  Scythian  burial  mounds,  which  have  been  opened 
in  the  middle  of  this  century,  have  brought  to  light  a 
medley  of  purely  Greek  and  of  Asiatic-Slavic  objects  of 
art.  Many  of  the  antique  Russian  ornaments  which 
represent  the  forms  of  animals  or  plants,  show  even 
through  the  kind  of  a  limals  and  plants  which  have  never 
existed  in  Russia  the  influence  of  the  East,  of  Persia, 
nay  of  India.  But  the  Russian  reproduction,  which  is 
free  from  any  influence  from  Byzantium,  has  its  distinct 
peculiarities. 

It  is  different  with  the  production  of  religious  images, 
the  representation  of  saints.  In  this  domain  Russia 
has  been  and  Russia  has  remained  wholly  Byzantine.  On 
this  point  it  has  not  separated  in  any  respect  from  the 
rest  of  the  Greek  Catholic  Church  of  Eastern  Europe. 


158 


IMPRESSION i  OF  RUSSIA. 


But,  so  far  as  religious  architecture  is  concerned,  there 
the  oldest  Russian  churches  are  plainly  distinguished 
from  the  unmixed  Byzantine  style,  by  their  slender 
forms  and  the  endeavor  to  tower  into  the  heavens. 

At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  Russian  art  had 
already  become  so  advanced  that  it  was  not  behind  that 
of  Western  Europe  nor  of  Byzantium.  The  Russian 
art-craftsmen  understood  how  to  work  in  metal  with 
such  dexterity  that  their  fame  extended  far  and  wide. 
In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  French 
ambassadors  found  them  in  the  Tatar-Mongolian  service. 
The  holy  Louis  of  France  sent  an  embassy  from  Cyprus 
to  the  great  Khan  of  Tatary,  whose  force  at  that  time 
occupied  a  large  part  of  Russia.  The  messengers  found 
a  Russian  architect  and  a  French  goldsmith  working  for 
him.  And  Du  Rian  Carpin,  who  in  124G  was  sent  by  In¬ 
nocent  IV.  to  the  great  Khan  Gajuk,  and  who  described 
the  pomp  and  wealth  of  the  Tatar  Court,  speaks  of  a 
Russian  goldsmith  who  was  a  favorite  of  the  Khan, 
and  who  had  made  a  throne  of  ivory,  adorned  with  gold 
and  precious  stones  and  ornamented  with  bas-reliefs. 

It  is  utterly  improbable  that  the  Tatars,  in  the  long 
time  they  ruled  Russia,  should  have  tried  to  give  a  dif¬ 
ferent  direction  to  the  artistic  taste  and  style  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  Komads  as  they  were,  they  had  no  artistic  style 
of  their  own,  and  did  not  trouble  themselves  about  the 
Russians,  except  to  get  money  out  of  them.  But  the  Ta¬ 
tar  Khans,  in  all  probability,  served  as  means  of  com¬ 
munication  between  the  Asiatic  races  who  possessed  an 
artistic  style,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  oppressed  Rus¬ 
sian  people,  on  the  other.  The  Russian  artists  who 
resided  among  them  looked  deeply  into  the  art  forms 
of  the  interior  of  Asia,  which  were  new  to  them,  and 
they  remembered  them  when  they  came  home.  In  1247 


INFLUENCES  FROM  TUE  EAST. 


159 


the  Russian  national  hero  and  saint,  Alexander  Nevsky, 
celebrated  for  his  victories  over  the  Swedes  and  the  Ger¬ 
man  order  of  knights,  was  obliged  to  pay  a  personal  visit 
to  the  camp  of  the  golden  hordes,  and  was  thence  taken 
to  the  great  Khan  himself,  in  order  to  obtain  a  desired 
alleviation  and  mitigation  of  the  conditions  of  vassalage. 
The  journey  took  two  years,  and  shows  how  many  points 
in  common  there  were  between  the  two  courts,  and  how 
easily  impressions  must  have  been  received. 

In  this  respect,  I  am  greatly  struck  by  a  quotation  by 
Viollet-le-Duc  in  his  work  on  Russian  art,  from  Marco 
Polo,  the  famous  Venetian  traveller,  the  first  European 
who  (in  the  thirteenth  century)  travelled  in  and  described 
Asia.  In  this  it  is  shown  that  a  strong  influence  from 
Eastern  Asia  has  been  effective  in  the  production  of  the 
gilded  and  colored  metal  cupolas,  the  variegated  roofs 
and  highly  colored  walls  in  Russia.  He  thus  describes 
the  palace  of  the  great  Khan  in  the  city  of  Khanbalu  : 

“  La  sale  est  si  grant  et  si  larges,  que  bien  hi  menuient 
j)lus  de  six  mille  homes.  Il  ha  tantes  chambres  que  e'en 
est  memo illes  å  voir.  II  est  si  grant  et  si  bien  fait  que 
ne  a  home  au  monde  que  le  pooir  en  aiist  qu’il  le  seust 
miaus  ordrer  nefaire  et  la  covreture  desoure  sunt  tout  ver- 
moile  et  vers  bloies  et  jaunes  et  de  tons  colors  et  sunt  enver- 
trée  si  bien  et  si  soitilement,  qu’il  sunt  respredisant  come 
cristiaus,  si  que  mont  oil  loigne  environ  le  palais  luissent. 
Et  sachiés  que  cele  covreure  est  si  fort  et  si  ferméement 
fait  que  dure  maint  ans.”  1 

1  “  The  palace  is  so  large  and  broad  that  it  will  hold  more  than  six 
thousand  men.  There  are  so  many  rooms  that  it  is  a  wonder  to  see. 
It  is  so  large  and  so  well  built  that  no  man  in  the  world  could  ask  for 
or  do  it  better,  and  the  roof  of  it  is  vermilion  and  blue  and  yellow  glass 
of  all  colors,  and  it  is  so  well  and  so  skilfully  varnished  that  it  shines 
like  crystal,  so  that  the  palace  glistens  far  in  the  distance.  And  know 
that  this  roof  is  strong,  and  so  firmly  built  that  it  has  endured  for 
many  years.” 


160 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Although  Russian  scholars  like  Strogonof  and  Mar- 
tinof  have  zealously  fought  against  Viollet-le-Duc’s  theo¬ 
ries  about  the  Tatar  and  Indian  influence  in  Russian 
architecture  and  ornamentation,  he  seems  to  me  to  be 
right  in  his  view  that  the  Russian  art  of  building  is 
composed  of  elements  which  are  almost  wholly  borrowed 
from  the  East. 

Russian  art  has  been  essentially  religious,  because  the 
religious  sentiment  in  Russia  (as  in  Poland)  has  been 
fused  with  love  for  the  fatherland  and  the  place  of  birth. 
The  question  with  the  clergy  was  how  to  fasten  the 
attention  of  the  people  xipon  religious  subjects,  and,  since 
the  common  people  could  not  read,  religious  painting 
was  employed  as  a  kind  of  figurative  language  ;  and,  in 
order  that  this  language  should  be  understood  at  all 
times,  all  changes  were  avoided.  A  hierarchical  canon 
was  borrowed  from  the  Byzantine  masters,  and  in  the 
lapse  of  centuries  nothing  whatever  has  been  changed 
in  the  form  and  stamp  of  the  images.  The  holy  icon 
was  a  national  symbol,  like  the  flag  in  later  times, 
revered  and  unchangeable  as  a  coat-of-arms  ;  it  repre¬ 
sented  a  grave,  thin,  ascetic  person  in  a  long  garment, 
which  was  the  ideal  of  the  stalwart,  carnally  minded 
men  of  the  earlier  days. 

But  it  was  only  in  this  domain  that  Russian  art  was 
stationary.  Especially  from  the  moment  when  Constan¬ 
tinople  was  no  longer  a  Christian  city,  but  in  the  hands 
of  the  Turks,  the  Russians  ceased  to  seek  there  for 
artistic  forms,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  their  origi¬ 
nal  production  reached  its  climax.  With  a  prudent  use 
of  their  natural  materials,  they  erected  churches  and 
houses  which  exactly  answered  to  their  needs  ;  they  man¬ 
ufactured  leather  and  ornamented  it ;  they  wove  cloths 
and  embroidered  them  in  a  manner  which  exactly  an- 


CHURCHES  AND  DECORATIONS. 


161 


swered  to  tlieir  sense  of  beauty.  At  the  same  epoch 
that  the  unity  of  the  empire  was  worked  out,  their 
artistic  production  took  on  a  homogeneous  stamp. 

They  gave  to  their  church  edifices,  which  were  sym¬ 
bolical  of  the  Russian  national  characteristics,  as  much 
splendor  as  possible.  They  were  intended  to  attract 
attention  by  their  size  and  by  the  striking  outline  of 
the  highest  parts.  They  connected  a  crown  of  cupolas 
around  a  central  cupola,  gave  them  the  form  of  a  tower, 
and  crowned  them  with  a  skilfully  worked-out  bulb  of 
gilded  or  colored  metal,  which  ended  in  crosses  furnished 
and  united  by  chains.  They  gave  to  the  outer  walls, 
which  were  covered  with  tiles,  enamelled  faience  and 
paintings,  the  character  of  a  radiant,  cheerful  carpet. 
The  predominant  colors  are  red,  white,  and  green,  which 
last  color  is  even  specially  adapted  to  the  bulb-shaped 
metal  top.1 

And  the  Tatar  rule  was  scarcely  shaken  off  before 
the  Muscovites  disclosed  the  greatest  talent  as  artistic 
armorers,  as  masters  of  chasing  gold  and  silver  and 
working  in  niello  ;  and  they  supplied  all  the  neighboring 
countries  with  embroidered  linen  and  artistically  manu¬ 
factured  leather.  Their  embroidery  is  distinguished, 
like  the  vignettes  on  their  old  manuscripts,  by  the  har¬ 
monious  combination  of  colors.  They  have,  upon  the 
whole,  a  keener  sense  of  the  harmony  of  colors  than  for 
plastic  beauty.  Since  the  law  for  them  as  painters  is 
not  inventive  power  but  fidelity,  they  sought  to  aton  > 
for  the  Byzantine  s'iffu  ss  and  lifelessness  of  the  fig¬ 
ures  in  their  paint'ngs  by  surrounding  them  with  gold, 
precious  stones,  and  pearls,  and  thus  change  the  images 
to  a  kind  of  gorgeous  decoration.  And  since  they  did 
not  dare  to  make  any  change,  and  as  no  kind  of  origi- 
1  Viollet-le-Duc:  L’Art  Hasse,  p.  108. 


162 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


nality  could  be  exhibited  in  the  treatment  of  the  head 
and  countenance  of  the  holy  persons,  they  strove,  in 
consequence,  to  make  amends  by  encircling  these  heads 
with  golden  halos,  inlaid  with  pearls  and  precious  stones, 
and  engraved  with  the  most  delicate  appreciation  of  art, 
and  by  ornamenting  the  breast  of  the  image  with  plates 
inlaid  with  gold  and  silver  in  blazing  designs,  and 
worked  in  niello  with  arabesques.  Some  of  these  halos 
and  breast-plates  from  the  sixteenth  century,  with  small 
green  leaves  and  small  blue  flowers  inlaid  in  the  gold 
matte,  or  with  green  in  different  shades,  enclosed  by 
white  lines,  and  with  single  black  leaves  and  black 
geometric  lines  in  the  gold,  are  of  a  beauty,  of  a  fasci¬ 
nating,  inspiring  loveliness,  of  which  no  description  can 
convey  any  idea. 

The  common  houses,  built  of  the  trunks  of  trees, 
remind  one  of  the  manner  of  building  in  Switzerland 
and  Norway.  Kindred  material  has  produced  kindred 
forms,  even  if  the  peculiar  Russian  stamp  is  easily 
recognizable.  Thus  even  before  the  time  of  Peter  the 
Great,  Russia  had  fully  developed  its  artistic  peculiari¬ 
ties.  In  so  far  as  the  foreign  invasion  which  ensued 
did  not  place  itself  at  the  service  of  these  peculiarities, 
it  only  succeeded  in  retarding  or  stopping  their  develop¬ 
ment  until  the  national  spirit  in  this  century  took  a 
new  start  in  artistic  as  well  as  in  other  domains. 

The  nineteenth  century  has  brought  an  art  of  painting 
to  Russia  for  the  first  time.  Catharina  collected  pic¬ 
tures  in  the  Hermitage,  and  founded  an  academy  of  art 
in  order  to  obtain  artists  for  her  empire  as  other  coun¬ 
tries  have  them.  But  what  they  painted,  they  never 
sold.  The  rich  Russian  of  her  day  bought  only  foreign 
pictures ;  and,  in  order  not  to  make  an  utter  failure,  the 
native  artists  then  began,  as  well  as  they  could,  to  imi- 


IV  AN  OF. 


163 


tate  the  art  of  painting  of  other  countries.  Thus  there 
sprang  up  several  generations  of  academicians,  imitators 
of  David,  who  painted  Spartans  and  Romans  with  bare 
legs  and  flowing  mantles. 

The  national  revival  of  1812,  which  was  quickly  felt 
in  the  literature,  had  hardly  any  effect  upon  art.  Nicho¬ 
las  secured  two  court  painters,  Brylof  and  Kotzebue,  — 
the  former  of  whom  has  become  known  by  a  cold 
academical  painting,  “  The  Last  Day  of  l’ompeii,”  and 
the  latter  by  his  battle-pieces,  representing  the  victories 
of  Suvorof  and  Kutuzof,  which  of  necessity  resemble 
all  such  scenes  of  victory  of  former  days.  A  single 
artist  comes  to  the  front  at  this  time,  Ivanof,  who  is 
now  so  celebrated,  the  painter  of  a  single  painting,  which, 
however,  was  never  finished. 

It  was  Gogol,  who  had  formed  a  friendship  with 
Ivanof,  who  gave  him  the  idea  of  this  picture  from 
sacred  history,  which  was  to  be  a  prodigy,  and  which, 
since  he  was  never  content  with  the  execution  of  his 
plan,  made  the  artist  continually  begin  anew.  For 
twenty  consecutive  years,  Ivanof  busied  himself  with 
this  work,  “  The  Coming  of  Christ.”  A  throng  of  men 
are  standing  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  about  John  the 
Baptist.  The  looks  of  all  are  fixed  upon  a  point  in  the 
distance,  at  which  John  points  with  his  hand.  Here 
over  the  highland  Jesus  appears,  a  sad  man,  drawing 
near  to  the  throng,  grazing  the  ground  with  his  divine 
feet.  He  seems  to  be  half  beatified. 

The  characterization  in  these  heads  was  executed  with 
persistent  passion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  coloring  is 
weak.  In  Tretiakof’s  gallery  in  Moscow,  a  gold  mine 
for  the  study  of  Russian  art,  you  can  trace  a  whole 
series  of  the  attempts  through  which  the  painting  has 
attained  to  its  final  form. 


164 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  unwearied  study  of  Ivånof,  prompted  by  true 
genius,  is  the  only  great  protest  against  the  academic 
art  under  Nicholas.  The  Tsar,  who  would  be  autocrat 
over  all  things  and  all  men  in  his  empire,  and  who  to  the 
best  of  his  ability  influenced  poetry  and  poets  also, — 
it  was  he  who  made  Pushkin  busy  himself  with  the 
history  of  Russia,  —  also  desired  to  have  a  noble  and 
conservative  art,  partly  in  a  general  way  as  an  ornament 
to  his  reign,  and  partly  to  solve  the  problem  of  glorify¬ 
ing  his  own  exploits.  He  succeeded  only  in  destroying 
the  courage  of  independent  men  of  talent,  and  nipping 
them  in  the  bud. 

It  is  only  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  that  there  has 
existed  a  real  Russian  school  of  painting,  and  that  the 
Russian  lovers  of  art  no  longer  go  to  foreign  countries 
when  they  wish  to  adorn  their  walls.  It  was  when,  with 
the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  which  liberated  about  fifty 
millions  of  men,  the  great  blast  of  freedom  spread  over 
Russia,  that  the  artists  set  to  work,  and  on  their  can¬ 
vases  —  frequently  of  the  greatest  possible  dimensions 
—  placed  important  incidents  from  their  national  life, 
very  much  as  the  authors  at  the  same  time  began  to  write 
novels  in  four  volumes  about  society  in  Russia.  And 
now  it  became  quite  the  fashion  to  be  interested  in 
Russian  art,  as  it  recently  had  been  the  fashion  to  do 
homage  to  everything  foreign.  The  artists  made  good 
sales,  and,  among  their  customers  sometimes  found  a 
Mæcenas  like  Tretiakof,  who  alone  has  founded  a  col¬ 
lection  of  Russian  paintings  which  is  many  times  greater 
and  very  much  better  than  that  of  the  Hermitage. 

A  relationship  is  now  disclosed  between  the  course  of 
development  of  literature  and  art.  Both  move  with  the 
same  force  and  speed  from  an  aristocratic  romanticism 
to  a  kind  of  realistic  representation  of  the  people.  In 


MODERN  ARTISTS. 


165 


literature  the  path  leads  from  the  refined  heroes  of 
Pushkin  and  Lermontof  to  Tolstoi’s  and  Dostoyevski’s 
dwelling  upon  the  simple-hearted.  In  art,  the  path  has 
taken  its  course  from  the  expounders  of  the  deeds  of 
the  great  and  the  elegance  of  the  upper  circles  of  society 
to  the  bold  and  sad  pictures  of  the  lot  in  life  of  the 
oppressed  and  unhappy.  So  far  as  artistic  fidelity  to 
reality  is  concerned,  Russia  now  stands  far  above  Poland, 
and  close  to  France. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  academy  in  St.  Petersburg  is  a 
sort  of  artistic  hierarchy.  The  same  Tchinovnisme  (offi¬ 
cial  spirit)  prevails  there  as  everywhere  in  Russia.  The 
chief  authorities  in  this  establishment  have  no  idea  of 
art.  At  the  head,  for  form’s  sake,  stands  Prince  Imperial 
Vladimir,  and  an  ex-governor  acts  under  him.  The  same 
subjects  are  constantly  given  to  all  students  :  Priams  who 
come  to  sue  for  Hector’s  corpse.  It  is  prescribed  from 
which  side  the  light  shall  come,  what  person  shall  stand 
in  the  foreground,  etc.  It  is  of  no  use  that  the  student 
is  much  more  interested  in  an  old  apple-woman  at  the 
corner  than  for  King  Priam  and  his  whole  court.  It  is 
Priam  and  Hecuba  that  he  must  paint.  —  “  What  is 
Hecuba  to  him  ?  ” 

Among  the  modern  artists  of  Russia  there  is  a  group 
of  decorative  colorists.  The  best  known  among  them 
is  not  a  Russian,  though  he  constantly  exhibits  in  Rus¬ 
sia.  It  is  a  Pole,  Semiradski,  who  has  been  under  the 
influences  of  Makart.  He  will  be  recollected  by  the 
reader  from  his  pictures,  of  which  the  photographs  have 
everywhere  been  widely  scattered,  “The  Living  Torches,” 
“  The  Sword  Dance,”  “  The  Girl  or  the  Vase  ?  ”  That 
which  is  attractive  in  him  and  which  he  can  impart  is 
not  the  best  in  the  art,  the  sentiment  of  a  scene  or  the 
evpression  of  emotion  Whit  ho  aspires  to  is  the  correct 


166 


IMPRESSION'S  OF  RUSSIA. 


representation  of  things  and  the  picturesque  splendor  of 
fabrics. 

Endowed  with  less  dramatic  power  than  he,  but  other¬ 
wise  akin  to  him,  is  the  Russian  Makovski,  an  artist 
very  pleasing  as  a  colorist,  but  of  little  psychological 
power.  He  exhibited  in  1887,  in  St.  Petersburg,  a  great 
painting,  bought  by  an  American:  “  Tsar  Alexis  Choosing 
a  Bride.”  The  subject  had  a  patriotic  interest,  in  so  far 
as  this  bride  who  was  sought  for  was  the  mother  of 
Peter  the  Great.  Besides  this  the  artist  has  availed  him¬ 
self  of  the  opportunity  of  painting  a  throng  of  beautiful 
young  girls  in  the  costume  of  the  period.  Strangely 
enough,  he  seems  to  have  used  one  and  the  same  model 
—  his  pretty  wife  —  for  all  the  young  women  among 
whom  Alexis  shall  make  his  choice.  The  whole  does 
not  perceptibly  rise  above  simple  costume  art.  Neither 
can  his  later  picture,  “  The  Death  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,” 
which  has  been  much  talked  of,  be  regarded  as  much 
superior  to  that  style  of  art.  In  two  of  the  figures  there 
is  expression :  in  the  frightened  fool,  who  is  lying  at  the 
feet  of  the  Tsar,  and  in  the  white-haired  Russian  digni¬ 
tary,  with  a  Avhite  beard,  who,  with  eyes  as  if  fixed  with 
fear,  looks  over  the  game  of  chess  at  the  drooping  man ; 
the  other  spectators  assume  theatrical  attitudes. 

A  unique  position  has  also  been  achieved  in  the  latest 
Russian  art  by  Verestcliagin,  just  as  well  known  —  in 
Denmark  also  —  for  his  extraordinary  natural  gifts  and 
for  his  abuse  of  his  talents.  His  biography  has  found 
its  way  into  our  literature,  and  a  large  number  of  his 
paintings  have  been  seen  in  Copenhagen.  In  connection 
with  this  fact,  it  ought  to  be  mentioned  that  only  too 
large  a  number  of  the  paintings  which  have  been  seen 
here  were  duplicates,  which  are  far  inferior  to  Verest- 
chagin’s  originals.  When  he  chooses  he  is  able  to  do 


VE  R  ES  TCHA  GIN  —  KRAMSKOL 


167 


great  things  as  a  colorist.  And  among  his  far  too 
numerous  paintings  there  are  not  a  few  which,  like  his 
“  Field  of  the  Dead,”  remain  ineffaceably  impressed  upon 
the  memory  of  the  beholder.  He  who  wishes  to  judge 
him  correctly  ought  not  to  be  content  with  studying 
what  he  has  himself  selected  for  export  and  international 
exhibition  by  electric  light,  with  the  accompaniment  of 
hand-organ  music,  but  he  should  visit  the  collection  of 
his  paintings  in  Tretiakof’s  gallery  in  Moscow.  Veresh¬ 
chagin  is  a  genuine  Russian,  with  his  bias  towards  a 
rambling  life  of  adventure,  and  with  the  extraordinary 
compound  in  his  art  of  ultra-realism  and  symbolical 
mysticism  (the  allegory  of  war,  for  example).  There  is 
a  certain  connection  between  him  and  Tolstoi.  He 
would  be  in  his  sphere  as  an  illustrator  of  Tolstoi’s 
works,  and  “  War  and  Peace  ”  would  be  specially 
adapted  to  his  talents.  His  conception  of  war,  as  De 
Vogue  has  c  >rrectly  felt,  is  that  of  this  author  who  loves 
peace  and  describes  war.1 

Among  the  modern  artists  of  Russia  there  are  two  who 
have  impressed  me  above  all  others,  Riepin  and  Kramskoi. 

The  forte  of  Kramskoi,  who  died  in  the  spring  of 
1887,  was  portrait-painting.  In  Tretiakof’s  gallery  there 
can  be  seen  a  whole  suggestive  series  of  his  vigorously 
conceived  portraits  of  the  great  distinguished  Russians 
of  his  day  :  Hertzen,  Byelinski,  Turgenief,  Dostoyevski, 
and  others.  After  his  deatli  there  was  an  exhibition  of 
his  works  in  the  academy.  There  were  two  religious 
paintings  :  “  Christ  in  the  Desert,”  emaciated  by  fasting, 
oppressed  by  the  weight  of  his  thoughts ;  and  a  huge 
unfinished  picture,  “Christ  before  Pilate,”  besides  five 
halls  full  of  portraits,  the  pearl  of  which,  with  its 
peerless  expression,  is  that  of  the  Little-Russian  poet 
1  E.  M.  de  Vogue:  Souvenirs  el  Visions,  p.  172. 


1G8 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Chevchenko,  who  has  suffered  so  much  and  written  so 
well. 

Kramskoi  was  born  in  1837,  in  a  village  in  Little 
Russia,  near  the  town  of  Ostrogo'isk.  His  father  was  a 
petty  tradesman ;  his  mother  passed  her  life  in  the 
kitchen.  The  boy  received  his  first  education  in  the 
parochial  school.  At  the  age  of  seven,  he  began  to 
model  Cossacks  in  clay ;  at  thirteen  he  begged  his 
parents  to  let  him  learn  the  art  of  painting.  Permis¬ 
sion  was  refused,  for  everybody  in  the  town  knew  that 
painters  “  go  barefooted.”  Having,  in  the  mean  time, 
drawn  everything  he  saw,  and  copied  all  the  images  in 
the  church,  a  year  or  two  later  he  was  sent  to  Voronezh, 
to  the  best  sculptor  there,  but  remained  with  him  only 
three  months,  being  only  sent  on  errands  about  the  town, 
and  having  no  other  amusement  or  recreation  than  a 
flogging.  From  sixteen  to  twenty  he  roamed  about 
Russia,  in  all  directions,  touching  up  pictures  for  a  pho¬ 
tographer  who  came  through  Ostrogo'isk.  During  this 
roving  life,  which  brought  him  an  income  of  two  rubles 
and  a  half  a  month,  he  read  everything  he  could  get 
hold  of,  and  was  especially  enthusiastic  over  Gogol  and 
Lermontof.  Finally,  at  twenty  years  of  age,  he  entered 
the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
gain  admission  into  the  academy.  He  thought  he  was 
standing  in  the  temple  of  Art. 

His  disappointment  was  great.  The  instruction  was 
simply  horrible.  The  drawing  classes  were  tolerably 
good,  but  the  higher  the  student  rose  the  worse  was  the 
teaching.  No  attention  whatever  was  paid  to  the  indi¬ 
viduality  of  the  young  men,  and  there  were  always  the 
same  biblical  or  antique  subjects.  It  was  then  just 
twenty  years  since  Ivånof  had  suffered  a  similar  disap¬ 
pointment  in  the  academy.  But  it  was  just  in  1858  that 


KRAMSKOI. 


169 


this  artist  came  with  his  painting  to  St.  Petersburg. 
Kramskoi  was  strongly  impressed  by  this  special  pic¬ 
ture  ;  he  felt  the  force  of  genius  in  the  conception,  and 
admired  the  truth  of  the  expression  of  the  faces.  In  his 
letters  he  puts  the  head  of  St.  John  on  a  level  with 
those  of  the  Venus  of  Milo  and  of  the  Sistine  Madonna, 
and  is  scandalized  that  no  one  in  St.  Petersburg  has  any 
eye  for  anything  but  the  mistakes  in  drawing  in  this 
grand  painting. 

Kramskoi  had  now  obtained  his  first  medals,  and 
lacked  only  one  year  of  being  sent  abroad  at  the  expense 
of  the  academy,  when  he  with  fourteen  comrades  sud¬ 
denly  left,  disgusted  at  the  instruction  they  received. 
It  is  these  fifteen  men  who  have  extricated  Russian  art 
from  routine.  Kramskoi  married  early,  and  his  house 
was  the  place  where  the  young  men  met.  He  himself, 
who  was  regarded  as  the  leader  of  the  movement,  worked 
unceasingly,  and  sought  for  all  sorts  of  knowledge.  His 
thirst  for  information  and  knowledge  was  so  great  that 
it  made  him  regard  every  student  with  veneration.  His 
simplicity  and  kind-heartedness  conquered  the  hearts 
of  all. 

At  this  time,  Riepin  became  his  pupil,  and  soon  his 
intimate  friend.  In  1868  he  also  formed  a  friendship 
with  a  landscape-painter  Vasilief,  who  later  exerted 
considerable  influence  upon  him.  Vasilief  drove  him 
on  to  independence  of  authority  of  every  sort,  and 
Riepin  enchanted  him  by  his  bold  style.  From  1868 
Kramskoi  was  celebrated.  He,  the  old  enemy  of  the 
academy,  was  himself  appointed  a  member  of  the 
academy.  Gradually  he  became  more  and  more  of  a 
colorist.  In  1876  he  writes  from  Paris,  that  he  had 
hitherto  worshipped  form  alone;  that  now  he  was  be¬ 
ginning  to  understand  what  the  art  of  painting  is.  He 


170 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


becomes  an  idolizer  of  Velasquez:  “Everything  is  pale 
and  insignificant  in  comparison  with  him.  He  paints 
with  his  nerves.  The  impression  is  crushing ;  there  is 
no  other  word  for  it.” 

Kramskoi  died  in  his  vocation.  While,  in  1887,  he 
was  painting  the  portrait  of  Rauchfuss,  the  imperial 
physician  in  ordinary,  he  dropped  his  brush,  and,  stoop¬ 
ing  over  for  it,  fell  dead  on  the  spot.  No  one  else  has 
painted  the  Russian  race  in  so  many  different  physiogno¬ 
mies  as  he. 

His  pupil,  Riepin,  the  greatest  living  artist  of  Russia, 
has  gained  special  reputation  by  some  historical  paint¬ 
ings  :  one  of  the  Tsaritsa  Sophia  after  Peter  the  Great 
has  driven  her  from  the  throne,  and  the  much-talked- 
about  Ivan  the  Terrible,  throwing  himself  broken¬ 
hearted  over  his  son,  whom  he  has  killed  by  a  blow  from 
his  iron-shod  cane.  The  latter  is  a  masterpiece,  and 
admirably  painted.  You  can  almost  smell  the  pool  of 
blood. 

Still,  these  are  not  the  paintings  which  are  the  most 
characteristic  of  Riepin’s  talent.  They  are  those  in 
which  he  has  represented  his  own  age.  There  is  a  sim¬ 
ple  strength  in  them,  a  profound  and  genuine  earnest¬ 
ness,  and  a  fascinating  heartiness.  He  has  caught  upon 
his  canvas  what,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  may  be 
called  modern  Russia.  His  pictures,  on  that  account, 
are  regarded  in  certain  circles  as  paintings  with  a  pur¬ 
pose, —  radical  paintings.  You  will  find  in  his  works 
the  types  of  the  intelligent  young  men  of  the  day,  of  the 
female  students  with  short  hair  and  wise  expression. 
He  has  painted  the  burlaki,  who  drag  the  boats  on 
the  Volga  up  against  the  stream.  The  expression  in 
the  depraved  or  resigned  countenances  of  these  bent, 
sweating  laborers,  with  the  tense  muscles  under  their 


TUE  SCULPTOR  ANTOKOLSKI. 


171 


tatters,  is  admirable.  lie  is  fond  of  subjects  like  The 
Departure  of  the  Recruit,  the  simple,  every-day  scene 
frequently  met  with  :  the  young  man’s  departure  from 
family  and  home  ;  or  like  “  The  Return  of  the  Exile,”  a 
picture  which  never  ceases  to  be  thrilling  from  its  very 
simplicity.  The  look  cannot  be  forgotten  which  the 
mother  and  sister,  astonished  and  half  frightened,  not 
yet  glad,  cast  upon  the  emaciated  young  form,  in  the 
sorry  clothes,  which  silently  glides  in  through  the  door. 

The  profound  sympathy  in  this  art  veils  the  remorse¬ 
lessness  of  the  realistic  representation. 

There  is  in  Russia  at  present  only  one  eminent  sculp¬ 
tor,  who  is  of  equal  importance  with  these  painters,  and 
that  is  Antokolski  one  of  the  few  men  of  Jewish  descent 
who  have  made  themselves  known  in  the  history  of 
sculpture.  He  passed  his  youth  in  great  poverty,  and 
was  learning  the  trade  of  shoemaker  in  St.  Petersburg 
when  his  talent  was  brought  to  Ught.  Baron  Gunzburg, 
the  rich  and  genial  banker  of  St.  Petersburg,  took  an 
interest  in  and  supported  him,  until,  quickly  enough,  he 
was  able  to  support  himself  by  his  art.  After  having 
been  a  long  time  in  Rome,  he  is  now  a  resident  of  Paris 
and  enjoys  a  European  reputation. 

Antokolski’s  “  Christ  ”  may,  perhaps,  be  remembered 
from  Julius  Lange’s  “Art  of  Sculpture.”  Bound,  with 
his  feet  joined  close  together,  Christ  is  presented  to  the 
people  in  a  form  executed  with  a  melancholy  realism,  in 
the  costume  of  the  time,  with  broad  sandals  under  his 
feet,  his  hair  fast  bound  to  bis  brow  by  sweat  under  the 
burning  sun,  —  an  earnest  and  truly  Jewish  type.  He 
looks  a  little  down  before  him,  but  the  look  is  contem¬ 
plative  ;  he  accepts  with  manly  firmness  the  ignominy 
that  the  cry  of  the  populace  prefers  Barabbas  to  him. 
There  is  a  Russian  stoicism  in  this  look. 


172 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Another  celebrated  statue  of  Antokolski,  representing 
the  dying  Ivån  the  Terrible,  is  not  less  interesting.  The 
Tsar  sits  in  his  arm-chair,  awaiting  the  coining  of  death. 
The  position  has  unquestionably  been  affected  by  Hou- 
din’s  “  Voltaire  :  ”  the  hand  which,  groping,  anchors 
itself  on  the  arm-chair.  There  is  something  in  the 
look  as  if  he  saw,  in  his  dying  glance,  the  thirty-five 
hundred  men  whom  he  has  condemned  to  death  pass 
slowly  before  him.  Lange  has  the  phrase,  “It  is  like 
a  soliloquy  of  Macbeth.” 

In  Baron  Giinzburg’s  house,  rich  in  works  of  art,  there 
is  a  very  admirable  bust  which  Antokolski  has  made  of 
Peter  the  Great,  of  large  size,  idealized  into  a  hero,  with 
royal  beauty  and  the  stamp  of  immense  power  of  will. 
In  the  same  place,  there  is  also  a  captivating  bust  of  a 
lady,  the  likeness  of  Baron  Giinzburg’s  deceased  wife. 
Among  his  other  works,  a  statue  of  Spinoza,  smiling  and 
contemplative,  deserves  special  mention. 

But  if  the  art  of  sculpture  thus  has  at  present  only 
one  great  name  to  point  to,  yet  there  is,  nevertheless, 
great  ability  in  this  field  in  Russia,  and  a  great  deal  of 
plastic  talent  finds  employment  in  the  service  of  art 
industries.  It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Russian 
society  that  all  the  anniversaries,  all  the  jubilees,  which 
fall  to  the  lot  of  persons  of  high  position  are  celebrated 
by  the  presentation  of  one  or  more  pieces  of  silver  or 
gold  artistically  designed.  Not  infrequently  a  jeweller 
receives  an  order  from  a  society  or  corporation  with  per¬ 
mission  to  go  as  high  as  twenty-five  thousand  rubles,  pro¬ 
vided  he  can  produce  a  real  work  of  art.  The  Russian 
taste  for  color  is  employed  in  a  more  pleasing  manner  in 
such  small  works  than  in  large  architectural  designs. 
The  jewellers  in  Moscow  understand  how  to  combine 
both  high  and  pale  colors  with  gold  and  silver  matte 


ty  DU  STIU  AL  ART. 


173 


with  extraordinary  beauty.  Unfortunately,  the  most 
that  we  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  at  the  Scandina¬ 
vian  exhibition  in  Copenhagen  was  less  characteristic  of 
the  Russian  people,  in  part  because  the  workman  had 
often  been  carried  away  by  French  designs  and  patterns, 
and  in  part  because,  as  a  whole,  this  art  came  rather 
from  the  mountaineers  of  the  Caucasus  than  from  the 
Russian  people  proper.  They  seem  here  to  have  pre¬ 
ferred  to  work  with  elegance  rather  than  with  individ¬ 
uality,  and  especially  to  have  preferred  to  present  proofs 
of  the  talent  of  the  Russians  in  imitation,  rather  than 
their  remarkable  gifts  of  compelling  the  foreigners  on 
their  own  soil  to  create  artistic  effects  in  the  Russian 
style  and  spirit. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIAN 
LITERATURE. 


i. 

Even  if  the  Russians  of  our  day  are  not  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  the  races  which  in  remote  times  ruled  the 
countries  north  of  the  Black  Sea,  they  are  at  least  their 
heirs,  and  he  who  is  much  interested  in  modern  Russia 
gladly  turns  to  the  Greek  and  Roman  authors  for  their 
descriptions  of  these  countries  and  their  climates,  and 
for  their  accounts  of  the  people  and  their  manners  and 
customs. 

What  made  the  deepest  impression  upon  the  classical 
authors  is  without  doubt  the  cold,  the  eight  months’ 
winter,  which  Herodotus  describes  (iv.  28),  and  which  is 
followed  by  a  cool  and  rainy  summer.  That  whole 
arms  of  the  sea  and  broad  rivers  are  frozen,  so  that 
people  can  drive  and  ride  over  them,  is  a  terrible  prodigy 
to  them.  We  read  in  Ovid  :  “  They  protect  themselves 
against  the  cold  by  skins  and  sewed  trousers,  and  of 
the  whole  form  only  the  face  is  to  be  seen.  The  hair 
often  rattles  from  the  ice  which  hangs  on  it,  and  the 
beard  shines  with  the  frost  which  covers  it.  The  wine 
keeps  the  shape  of  the  bottle,  when  the  bottle  is  broken 
in  pieces,  and  they  do  not  pour  it  out,  but  divide  it  up. 
Why  should  I  say  that  all  the  brooks  are  stiffened  by 
the  cold  and  that  they  dig  water  out  of  the  sea  that  they 
can  break  into  pieces  ?  Even  the  Ister  (Danube),  which 
is  not  less  broad  than  the  Nile,  and  which,  through  its 

177 


178 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


many  mouths,  mingles  its  waters  with  the  sea,  freezes, 
when  the  winds  harden  its  waves,  and  steals  out  into 
the  sea  under  a  covering  of  ice.  Where  the  ships  went 
before,  people  go  on  foot.  The  horse’s  hoof  stamps  on 
the  frozen  plain,  and  over  these  new  bridges,  above  the 
flowing  waves,  the  Sarmatian  oxen  drag  the  barbaric 
vehicles.  You  may  hardly  believe  me,  but,  since  I  shall 
gain  nothing  by  telling  a  falsehood,  I  ought  to  be 
believed :  I  have  seen  the  immense  Black  Sea  hardened 
into  ice,  which  like  a  smooth  shell  lay  upon  the  immov¬ 
able  waters.  And  I  have  not  only  seen  it,  but  I  have 
trodden  on  the  hard  ocean  plain  and  walked  with  dry 
feet  over  the  sea.”  (Tristia,  iii.  10.) 

In  the  next  place,  the  lack  of  trees  in  these  regions 
made  a  great  impression  on  those  who  came  here  from 
Greece  and  Italy.  Of  the  country  of  the  Sarmatians, 
Herodotus  says  that  it  is  entirely  bare  both  of  cultivated 
and  wild  trees;  of  the  Scythians  he  relates  how  for 
want  of  wood  they  cook  the  flesh  of  their  sacrificed 
animals  in  the  stomachs  of  the  latter,  with  fire  which 
is  made  of  their  bones  (iv.  21,  61).  Ovid  turns  back 
again  and  again  to  the  melancholy  want  of  vegetation 
in  the  region.  “No  trees,  no  vines  in  the  Getian  land. 
Rarely  in  the  open  fields  is  there  a  bush,  which  even  then 
does  not  flourish.”  ( Tristia ,  iii.  12 ;  Ex  Ponto,  iii.  1,  7.) 

In  remote  times,  as  is  well  known,  all  the  races  on 
the  plains  which  became  Russia  were  mingled  together 
under  the  names  of  the  Scythians,  Sarmatians,  Getians, 
and  some  others.  It  is  impossible  now  to  determine  how 
far  they  were  the  ancestors  of  the  Slavs.  But  that  the 
latter  generally  had  ancestors  among  them,  is  evident 
from  the  character  of  the  bones  which  have  been  found 
in  the  old  burial  mounds  ( Kurgans )  in  Southern  Scythia.2 

1  Elisée  Reclus:  Géoyraphie  universelle,  v.  299. 


IDENTITY  OF  DIFFERENT  MYTHS. 


179 


Several  places  in  Herodotus  have  already  drawn  our 
thoughts  in  this  direction.  Thus  the  place  (iv.  75) 
where  he  relates  of  the  Scythians  tkat  they  never  wash 
their  bodies  in  water,  but  use  steam  baths  instead. 
(Comp.  Nestor’s  Chronicle,  v.)  But  the  chapter  in 
Herodotus  (iv.  5)  where  he  speaks  of  their  myths  is 
far  more  remarkable.  How  Slavic  it  is  even  then,  that 
the  common  ancestor  of  their  race  was  a  son  of  the 
supreme  God,  whom  he  had  from  a  daughter  of  the  river 
Borysthenes  (Dnieper).  Here  already  is  the  personifica¬ 
tion  of  the  rivers  which  is  so  common  in  the  old  Slavic 
epics.  But  still  more  surprising  is  the  resemblance 
between  the  myths  about  that  Kola-xais,  the  youngest 
son  of  the  common  father,  prince  of  the  ploughshare,  and 
Mikula  of  the  bilini  (the  epic  poems),  the  son  of  the 
peasant.  Herodotus  relates  that,  while  Kola-xais  and 
his  brothers  reigned,  there  fell  a  plough,  a  yoke,  an  ox, 
and  a  bowl,  all  of  gold,  down  into  Scythia  from  heaven. 
When  the  eldest  brothers,  one  after  the  other,  approached, 
they  were  burned  by  the  gold  and  driven  back  by  its 
glow.  But  when  the  youngest  came  up,  the  fire  was 
extinguished,  and  for  that  reason  they  gave  him  the 
whole  kingdom.  Also  Mikula,  the  child  of  a  village, 
the  agricultural  hero,  has  a  wonderful  plough.  When 
Volga,  the  bold  warrior,  with  his  guard,  rides  from  place 
to  place  to  collect  taxes  from  the  Slavic  towns,  he  sud¬ 
denly  hears  out  in  the  country  the  sound  of  a  plough. 
He  hears  the  creaking  of  its  woodwork  and  the  grinding 
of  its  ploughshare  against  the  stones.  Volga  and  his 
men  take  a  course  in  the  direction  of  the  ploughman, 
and  ride  a  whole  day  without  finding  any  one.  Yet  the 
sound  of  the  visionary  plough,  and  the  striking  of  the 
iron  against  the  stones  in  the  furrows,  constantly  ring  in 
their  ears.  Volga  rides  another  day  without  meeting 


180 


1MPRESSIO  YS  OF  RUSSIA. 


.any  one.  As  Orestes  Miller  has  remarked,  the  picture  is 
enlarged  bv  this  feature,  so  that  it  assumes  huge  pro¬ 
portions.  It  becomes  a  poetic  representation  of  the 
boundless  plain  of  which  the  Russian  land  is  made  up. 
The  farmer  draws  his  furrow  in  this  plain  with  such  a 
wonderful  skill  that  they  only  see  in  him  a  divine 
workman,  the  representative  and  protector  of  Russian 
agriculture. 

It  is  only  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day  that 
Volga  reaches  the  countryman  who  is  ploughing  up  the 
ground  with  the  mighty  plough,  tearing  up  the  roots  of 
trees  and  breaking  off  fragments  of  rock.  He  greets 
him  and  congratulates  him.  Mikula  tells  him,  in  re¬ 
turn,  how  one  day,  when  people  from  the  neighborhood 
came  to  him  and  demanded  taxes,  he  gave  them  all  taxes 
with  his  staff.  When  Volga  begs  him  to  join  his  body 
guard  ( Druzhina ),  Mikula  consents  on  condition  that 
one  of  Volga’s  men  shall  pull  his  plough  out  of  the 
furrow  and  throw  it  into  a  bush.  But  not  five,  not 
even  ten,  of  his  brave  men  can  stir  the  plough  from  its 
place.  Then  Mikula  comes  up  alone,  and  with  one  hand 
seizes  the  plough  and  flings  it  up  in  the  clouds,  from 
which  it  falls  down  into  a  bush.1 

As  we  saw,  the  plough  also  here  falls  down  from  heaven. 
Over  and  over  again,  as  ethnographic  studies  make  prog¬ 
ress,  scholars  have  occasion  to  admire  the  scrupulous 
trustworthiness  of  old  Herodotus. 

To  read  Ovid  after  Herodotus  is  to  be  transported  five 
hundred  years  in  time  and  from  one  world  to  another. 
But  the  poetical  lamentations  of  the  over-educated 
Roman  poet  and  his  letters  from  Pontus  are  still  one 
of  the  oldest  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  how  the 
regions  which  to-day  lie  on  the  southwestern  frontier 
1  A.  Rambaud  :  La  Iiussie  épique,  p.  39. 


OVID’S  MISFORTUNES. 


181 


of  Russia  were  inhabited  in  ancient  times,  and  of  their 
natural  conditions.  Poor  Ovid !  The  knowledge  we 
now  have  was  bought  by  the  misfortune  which  befell 
him,  —  a  misfortune  so  great  and  complete  that  it  is 
incomprehensible  how  any  one  has  ever  been  able  to 
speak  of  his  lamentations  in  a  careless  tone,  No  author 
in  the  Roman  literature  had  a  more  original  or  bolder 
talent,  and  no  one  met  with  a  more  cruel  fate.  It  was 
so  long  before  the  days  of  the  Russian  empire,  an  actual 
exile  for  life  to  Siberia.  The  illegal  judgment  strikes 
him,  the  finest,  most  sensuous,  most  petted  poetic  nature 
of  Rome,  tears  him,  even  then  growing  old,  out  of  the 
pleasures  of  home  life,  away  from  a  wife  whom  he  loves 
with  the  most  heartfelt  tenderness,  after  having  been 
twice  unhappily  married,  away  from  the  circle  of  his 
friends  and  admirers,  away  from  the  city  of  the  world 
which  is  all  in  all  to  him,  from  his  fatherland  (nay,  from 
civilization),  and  drags  him  over  the  sea  and  the  salt 
waves  to  the  end  of  the  known  world.  He  is  landed 
solitary  and  alone  in  a  place  where  the  air  itself  is  pain¬ 
ful  to  him  ;  where  he  can  endure  neither  the  drinking 
water  nor  the  food,  cannot  protect  himself  sufficiently 
against  the  climate,  cannot  find  a  physician  when  he  is 
ill,  nor  a  single  man  with  whom  he  can  exchange  ideas 
when  he  is  well ;  where  few  understand  Greek  and  none 
Latin  ;  where  he  must  live  in  perpetual  fear  of  attacks 
from  hostile  tribes,  who  swarm  about  the  town  and  often 
enough  break  in,  in  constant  anxiety  lest  there  should 
be  attacks  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  who  were 
little  less  than  barbarian ;  finally,  where  he  cannot  once 
move  outside  of  the  poor  strongholds  of  the  town,  or  own 
even  the  least  bit  of  a  garden,  of  which  he  so  bitterly 
feels  the  want,  because  there  are  no  gardens  in  the  town, 
and  personal  safety  is  wholly  wanting  outside,  so  that  the 


182 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


land  for  miles  distant  remains  uncultivated.  When  the 
guards  on  the  towers  give  the  alarm,  he,  the  refined  for¬ 
eigner,  lays  hold  of  his  weapons.  The  coast  is  inhabited 
by  Greeks  and  Getians  mixed  together,  the  latter  being 
the  more  numerous,  and  even  those  who  speak  Greek 
have  the  Getian  accent.  Getian  and  Sarmatian  horse¬ 
men  ride  through  the  streets  in  crowds,  clothed  in  skins, 
with  long  and  loose  trousers,  with  long  beards  and  hair 
which  hangs  down  over  their  faces,  with  knives  loose  in 
their  sheaths,  their  bows  in  their  hands,  and  their  quivers 
full  of  poisoned  arrows  rattling  on  their  backs.  The 
hostile  Getians  also  use  only  arrrows  which  they  have 
dipped  in  poison ;  they  live  by  robbery  alone,  come 
driving  on  their  horses  with  the  fury  of  a  storm,  very 
little  dismayed  by  the  slight  walls  of  the  town,  and 
many  a  time  their  death-bearing  shots  fly  in  over  the 
walls,  so  that  the  houses  of  the  town  were  as  if  larded 
with  arrows.  Grant  that  there  is  a  little  poetic  exagger¬ 
ation  in  his  description  of  his  continual  danger,  there  is 
wretchedness  enough  left.  And  in  this  condition  Augus¬ 
tus  and  his  successor  let  the  most  original  poet  of  Borne 
pine  away,  year  in  and  year  out,  always  cherishing 
delusive  hopes  of  a  milder  place  of  banishment,  sepa¬ 
rated  from  everything  he  loved  and  had  a  taste  for,  and 
for  a  fault  which  was  not  a  fault ;  for  having  got  on  the 
scent  of  a  court  secret,  which  he  did  not  dare  to  mention, 
and  which  is  unknown  to  us.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he, 
with  his  gentle  and  timid  character,  begs  for  mercy 
from  the  powerful  father  of  the  land,  with  continual 
humble  adulation.  But  when  we  read  these  prayers 
for  liberation  we  feel  an  involuntary  admiration  ris¬ 
ing  up  for  the  Russian  authors  who,  exiled  in  our 
day  in  similar  circumstances,  live  and  die  without  a 
prayer  or  a  complaint,  much  less  a  word  of  flattery 


NESTOR'S  CHRONICLE. 


183 


or  adulation  for  him  who  exiled  them,  falling  from 
their  lips. 

Putting  Ovid’s  “Elegies”  back  on  the  shelves,  and 
taking  down  Nestor’s  chronicle  in  its  place,  we  are  fully 
a  thousand  years  later  in  time.  The  great  national 
migrations  had  driven  the  Slavic  races  in  broad  waves 
in  over  Russia.  Kingdoms  have  been  founded  in  Nov¬ 
gorod  and  Kief.  Together  with  legends  and  naive  con¬ 
jectures  about  the  more  remote  times,  we  have  here  a 
history  becoming  more  trustworthy  as  we  approach  the 
period  of  the  narrator’s  own  life,  ending  with  the  year 
1110.  And  even  from  a  period  concerning  which  Nestor 
has  only  exceedingly  doubtful  traditions  to  depend  upon, 
he  possessed  treaties  and  agreements,  genuine  documents 
of  the  highest  importance,  which  he  incorporates  in  his 
book.  He  is  Russia’s  Saxo-Grammaticus,  but  a  hundred 
years  older  than  the  Danish  monk,  and  his  work  has  the 
greater  literary  value,  given  to  it  by  the  use  of  the 
mother  tongue. 

What  especially  attracts  the  attention  of  the  Scandi¬ 
navian  reader  is  everything  which  relates  to  the  rule 
of  the  Norsemen  in  Russia,  the  statesmanship  of  the 
Varings  and  their  campaign.  In  the  Danish  translation 
of  Nestor’s  chronicle,  there  are  given  in  learned  notes  all 
necessary  criticism  of  the  old  chronicles  and  information 
as  to  the  present  condition  of  investigation.  The  expla¬ 
nation  of  the  Scandinavian  words  by  Gislason,  at  the 
end  of  the  book,  is  also  very  instructive. 

In  historical  and  psychological  respects,  a  comparison 
between  the  style  and  descriptions  of  Nestor  and  of  the 
Icelandic  sagas  is  of  great  interest,  especially  in  those 
cases  where  the  chronicles  and  sagas  treat  of  the  same 
persons  and  events.  An  essay  by  the  Russian  scholar 


184 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Senkovski  on  the  Icelandic  sagas  and  their  relation  to 
Russian  history,  which  has  been  translated  into  Danish, 
awakens  the  attention  and  sharpens  the  reader’s  capacity 
to  recognize  Nestor’s  peculiarities  and  limitations.1 
Senkovski  compares,  as  an  example  point  by  point, 
Eymundar  Saga  with  the  chapters  (forty-eighth  and 
following)  in  Nestor.  The  worthy  monk  here  falls  far 
behind.  The  saga  was  composed  from  the  verbal  narra¬ 
tive  of  Icelanders  who  had  been  participants  in  the 
events  described,  and  have  the  trustworthiness  of  eye¬ 
witnesses.  Nestor,  credulously,  with  many  oratorical 
embellishments  and  pious  remarks,  gives  an  account  of 
martial  exploits,  victories,  and  defeats,  concerning  which 
he  has  only  an  indistinct  and  unintelligible  tradition. 
The  Icelanders  had  political  talent  and  ability,  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  the  skill  of  the  Vikings  in  tactics  and  war. 
While  the  monk  from  the  cave-cloister  in  Kief,  without 
considering  the  material  difficulties  of  keeping  forces  in 
the  open  field,  makes  the  armies  of  Yaroslaf  and  Sviato- 
polk  stand  full  three  months  face  to  face  in  battle  at 
Liubetch ;  and  while  he,  in  biblical  fashion,  reports  the 
threatening  speeches  of  the  leaders  of  the  armies  to  the 
enemy,  and  the  impatient  expressions  of  the  troops  at 
this  derision,  the  saga  shortens  the  time  from  three 
months  to  four  days,  shows  what  lot  and  part  Eymund, 
the  chief  of  the  Varings,  had  in  the  battle,  describes  his 
flank  movement,  his  attack  on  the  foo  at  once  from  front 
and  rear,  and  gives,  without  any  fabrications,  embellish¬ 
ments,  or  pious  reflections,  an  intelligible  picture,  even 
if  it  seems  as  if  the  author  of  the  saga  had  mixed  up 
the  reports  of  two  different  battles. 

The  greatest  difference  between  the  cloister  spirit  and 
saga  style  is  felt  in  the  account  given  by  Nestor  and  in 
1  Annals  of  the  Society  of  Northern  Antiquities,  1847. 


CHRONICLE  AND  SAGA  COMPARED. 


185 


the  saga  of  Sviatopo'k’s  (Burisleif’s)  decisive  defeat 
in  the  revolt  against  his  brother  Yaroslaf  (the  Jarisleif  of 
the  saga).  In  Nestor  it  is  said,  “But  towards  evening 
Yaroslaf  triumphed,  and  Sviatopolk  took  flight.  And 
as  he  fled,  the  devil  came  upon  him,  and  his  joints  were 
loosened  so  that  he  could  not  sit  on  his  horse,  and  they 
carried  him  in  a  litter,  and  brought  him  in  his  flight  to 
Beréstije.  But  he  said,  ‘  Fly  with  me,  for  they  are 
pursuing  us.’  And  his  servants  sent  a  messenger  back, 
and  said,  ‘  See  if  any  one  is  coming  after  us ;  ’  and  there 
was  no  one  who  followed  them.  And  they  fled  farther 
with  him,  and  he  was  then  lying  in  delirium,  and  started 
up,  and  said,  ‘  They  are  coming  after  us  !  Hasten  !  ’  He 
could  not  stay  in  one  place,  and  flew  through  Liachland, 
pursued  by  the  wrath  of  God,  and  c  ime  to  a  desert  place 
betwi  en  the  Liachs  and  the  Czechs,  and  there  in  a  piti¬ 
able  manner  he  ended  his  life.  The  unjust  and  godless 
man  now  had  his  deserts,  when  the  judgment  came  upon 
him,  after  his  exit  from  this  world,  given  up  to  torments 
in  the  next.  This  was  plainly  shown  by  the  mortal 
pangs  which  came  upon  him,  and  mercilessly  drove  him 
to  death ;  and  after  death  he  is  suffering  everlasting  tor¬ 
ments  in  chains.  This  has  God  done  as  a  warning  to 
the  Russian  princes,”  etc. 

In  the  saga  the  extract  is  less  theological.  It  is  told 
there  how  the  practical  Norse  chief  lays  before  Yaroslaf 
the  necessity  of  letting  his  rebellious  brother  be  slain. 
“For  there  will  never  be  any  end  to  this  misfortune  so 
long  as  you  both  live.”  When  the  king  gives  the  answer 
that  he  will  not  call  upon  people  to  attack  his  brother, 
and  then  afterwards  prosecute  them  in  case  they  killed 
him,  Eymund  interprets  the  answer  as  it  suits  him, 
sallies  forth  with  eleven  others,  hides  himself  in  a 
forest,  by  the  borders  of  which  the  hostile  army  is 


186 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


encamped,  murders  the  king’s  brother,  and  brings  to  the 
king  his  severed  head.  “  See  here,  my  lord,  if  you  know 
this  head.”  Yaroslaf  turns  red.  “  This  deed  we  Norse¬ 
men  have  done,”  says  Eymund,  “but  now  let  your 
brother  be  buried  in  a  becoming  and  honorable  manner.” 
Yaroslaf  answers,  “  You  have  done  a  rash  deed,  my 
friends,  which  weighs  heavily  upon  me.  You  have 
killed  him ;  then  bury  him  also.”  About  condemnation 
of  the  event,  even  on  the  side  of  the  injured  brother,  not 
a  word  is  said.  Senkovski  properly  notices  the  improba¬ 
bility  of  attributing  to  the  Varing-Russian  heroes  of  that 
age  the  aversion  of  the  Christian  monk  to  bloodshed. 
It  was  only  cowardice  that  was  despicable  in  their  sight. 
For  the  perfidious  and  bold  wrong-doer  they  had  a  re¬ 
spect  which  was  not  denied  to  him  even  when  they  were 
in  arms  against  him. 

The  language,  as  well  as  the  peculiarities  of  race,  of 
the  ruling  warrior  caste  of  Scandinavian  Russians  was 
speedily  absorbed  by  the  great  Slavic  people,  largely  be¬ 
cause  the  Varings  seldom  married  any  other  than  native- 
born  wives  ;  therefore  no  traces  of  the  Norse  mythology 
are  to  be  found  in  Russia.  On  the  other  hand,  we  meet 
(especially  in  the  only  written  epic  poem  of  Russia)  not 
a  few  reminiscences  of  the  old  Slavic  worship  of  God 
and  nature.  Still,  what  we  know  about  the  mythical 
beings  is  very  little.  The  Slavs  worshipped  the  heavens 
by  the  name  of  Svarog.  The  sons  of  the  heavens  were 
Dazhbog,  god  of  the  sun  (and  wealth.  From  clazh  —  day, 
and  bog — god),  and  the  god  of  fire,  Ogon  (Indian,  Agni). 
The  god  of  the  sun  had  other  names  besides :  Hors  and 
Yolos,  who  like  Apollo  was  god  of  the  flocks  and  of  the 
poets.  Perun  corresponds  to  Thor  as  the  god  of  thun¬ 
der.  Stribog  is  the  god  of  the  winds.  In  addition  they 
worshipped  “  the  damp  mother  earth ;  ”  the  spring  season, 


RUSSIAN  EPICS. 


187 


Vesna;  and  Morana,  the  god  of  death  and  of  winter. 
The  souls  of  the  dead  were  called  Rusalki.  In  Russia, 
as  everywhere  else,  on  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
the  heathen  forms  and  ceremonies  were  not  rooted  out, 
but  named  anew,  and  consolidated  with  the  festivals  of 
the  Church.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  holy  Elias,  with  his 
chariot  of  fire,  appears  in  place  of  the  thunder-god 
Rerun.  There  are  many  songs,  which  it  is  the  custom 
and  usage  to  sing  on  anniversaries,  over  the  whole  of 
Russia,  which  have  a  mythical  origin.1 

But  an  entirely  different,  copious  and  valuable  source 
of  knowledge  of  the  old  Slavic  intellectual  life  is  to  be 
found  at  the  present  time  in  the  bilim,  which  were  first 
collected  and  published  in  this  century,  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  old  Russian  epic  poems.  The  first  collection  of  these 
appeared  in  1804,  consisting  of  songs  which  had  been 
collected  among  the  iron-workmen  in  the  department  of 
Perm.  In  1818  a  new  edition  of  the  collection  was  pub¬ 
lished,  with  sixty  numbers  in  place  of  twenty-five.  It 
was  then  found  out  that  there  were  a  large  number  of 
epic  songs  in  circulation  among  the  peasants  in  Northern 
Russia.  From  1852  to  1856,  Sreznevski  published  Itlim, 
which  were  recited  in  these  northern  departments  ;  yet 
it  was  only  in  1859  that  the  investigations  of  Rybnikof, 
in  the  regions  about  the  Onéga  Lake,  made  it  plain  that 
Russia  had  an  enormously  large  unknown  national  litera¬ 
ture  in  the  form  of  popular  poems,  which  it  was  simply 
necessary  to  collect  from  the  lips  of  the  people.  The 
isolation  caused  by  the  severe  climate  about  the  Onéga 
Lake,  the  simple  manner  of  life  and  na'ive  mode  of 
thought  of  the  inhabitants,  the  superstition  and  igno¬ 
rance,  the  inability  to  read  and  write,  have  made  these 

1  See  Alexander  von  Reinholdt:  Geschichte  der  Rassischen  Lit¬ 
teratur,  hk.  1. 


188 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


regions  h  sort  of  oral  Iceland  for  old  Slavic  poetry. 
Rybnikof  was  followed  by  Hilferding,  who,  in  the  same 
wild  provinces,  collected  more  than  three  hundred  new 
songs  or  new  variations.  Next  comes  a  garland  of  poems 
published  by  Kirievski,  collected  from  almost  all  parts 
of  Great  Russia  and  Siberia.  And  in  all  these  songs 
the  same  persons  appear,  the  same  adventures  happen, 
and  the  same  poetical  expressions  are  found. 

The  best  of  these  poems,  and  the  most  of  them,  turn 
upon  the  oldest  memories  of  the  Slavic  countries,  and 
range  themselves  into  two  principal  circles,  the  Kief 
circle  and  the  Novgorod  circle.  Sometimes  they  point 
straight  back  to  the  heathen  Russia  and  the  oldest 
Aryan  mythology,  which  lies  back  of  the  Slavic  reli¬ 
gions.  Thus  they  also  present  points  of  comparison 
with  the  holy  books  of  India,  and  even  several,  and  for 
a  Scandinavian  reader  more  interesting  ones,  with  the 
Edda  and  the  Norse  myths. 

Maikof  succeeded  in  fixing  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  as  the  period  of  the  most  important  song- 
circle  :  the  Vladimir  cycle,  whose  centre  is  Kief.  He 
has  proved  that  in  all  these  poems  there  is  no  other 
Russia  known  than  that  which  lies  about  the  Dnieper. 
The  capital  is  Kief;  there  is  no  mention  of  Moscow. 
The  subordinate  places  are  Chernigof,  Galiteh,  Murom, 
Smolensk,  etc.  The  Russia  of  the  bilirn  has  already 
been  converted  to  Christianity,  and  obeys  one  prince, 
but  is  in  continual  war  with  the  nomads  in  the  south 
and  east.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  period  between  the 
introduction  of  the  orthodox  faith  and  the  rule  of  the 
Tatars.  Closer  examination  gives  the  circumstance 
that  there  is  mentioned  in  the  German  “Otnit,”  from 
the  twelfth  century,  an  “  Ilias  of  Riuzen,”  plainly  the 
Russian  national  hero  Ilia  of  Murom,  and  that  in  like 


NORSE  AND  RUSSIAN  MYTHS. 


189 


manner  in  the  Icelandic  Thidrek  saga  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  which  is  composed  from  Saxon  songs  or  tradi¬ 
tions  from  the  twelfth  century,  there  is  mention  of  a 
Russian  King,  Vladimir,  and  his  brother  Jarl  Ilia  from 
Greece,  which  means  Russia.1 

Now  and  then,  as  already  stated,  we  hit  upon  a  pas¬ 
sage  in  the  bilini  of  the  Kief  circle  which  call  to  mind 
Norse  myths  and  popular  traditions.  Thus  it  is  said  of 
Sviatogor,  one  of  the  oldest  heroic  figures,  a  Titan  with 
supernatural  strength  who  is  sometimes  mixed  up  with 
the  Bible  Samson,  that  when,  one  day,  he  was  lying 
stretched  out  on  a  mountain,  Ilia  of  Murom,  the  national 
hero,  the  son  of  a  peasant,  in  whom  the  saga  figure 
Mikula  seems  to  have  been  born  again,  wished  to  chal¬ 
lenge  him  to  single  combat.  But  the  most  vigorous 
blows  from  Ilia’s  club  were  hardly  able  to  awaken 
Sviatogor  from  his  dreams.  He  thought  it  was  peb¬ 
bles  that  were  falling  on  him.  At  the  third  blow,  he 
says  to  Ilia :  “  You  are  strong  among  men ;  remain 
strong  among  them ;  with  me  you  cannot  compare  your¬ 
self.  The  ground  could  not  bear  me,  so  I  lay  down  on 
this  mountain.”  Who  does  not  recall  the  scene  between 
Thor  and  the  giant  who,  at  the  most  vigorous  blows  of 
the  hammer  of  the  god,  thinks  that  he  was  hit  by  a  fall¬ 
ing  leaf  or  acorn  ! 

Another  adventure  also  reminds  us  of  Thor  and 
Utgardloke.  It  is  an  account  of  how  Ilia  disappears 
in  the  pocket  of  the  sleeping  Sviatogor.  (The  wife  of 
the  latter  hides  him  there  to  escape  the  anger  of  the 
giant.)  In  just  the  same  way,  Thor  passes  a  whole  night 
in  Skrymer’s  glove.  Both  Ilia  and  Thor  here  are  the 
lightning  which  conceals  itself  for  a  long  time  behind 

1  A  von  Reinholdt,  above  cited,  p.  49.  Rambaud:  La  Russie 
épique,  p.  155. 


190 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  clouds,  and  very  significantly  Thor,  immediately 
after  coming  out  of  the  glove,  strikes  the  giant  on  his 
head  with  his  hammer  so  that  the  blood  spurts  out. 

Among  other  things,  Ilia  also  fights  with  the  robber 
Solovei,  who  blocks  his  way  to  the  mountain  of  the  Sun- 
prince.  This  Solovei  has  a  face  of  a  bird  and  utters  a 
horrible  bird-cry,  whose  shriek  works  such  destruction 
that  the  roofs  in  Vladimir’s  palaces  fall  in.  He  is,  there¬ 
fore,  the  spirit  of  bad  weather  and  storm,  and  by  his 
bird-form  calls  to  mind  that  giant  in  the  guise  of  an 
eagle  who,  in  Vafthrudnismål,  sitting  at  the  end  of 
heaven,  with  his  wings  which  are  those  of  an  eagle,  sets 
the  winds  in  motion  ;  or  the  giant  Thiasse,  who,  in  the 
guise  of  an  eagle,  carries  away,  conceals,  and  later  pur¬ 
sues  Idun,  until  he  meets  his  death  in  the  fire  which  was 
kindled  for  him  behind  Asgaard’s  wall.  Bird-forms 
everywhere  are  symbols  of  storms  and  bad  weather. 

There  is  still  another  little  incident  of  Ilia’s  battle 
with  the  giant  which  recalls  a  Norse  tradition.  As  Ilia 
finds  gold  and  silver  in  great  quantity  in  Solovei’s  nest, 
so  Sigurd  finds  the  red  gold  under  the  dragon  Fafner.  It 
is  one  and  the  same  symbol  of  the  shining  beams  which 
the  dark  clouds  hide  under  or  behind  them. 

Among  Sviatogor’s  adventures,  in  the  next  place,  is  one 
which  greatly  reminds  ns  of  Thor’s  when  the  giant  plays 
a  trick  upon  him,  and  lets  him  drink  out  of  the  horn  the 
other  end  of  which  is  in  the  sea,  raises  a  cat  which  is  the 
Midgaard-serpent,  and  is  troubled  by  an  old  woman  who 
is  old  age.  When  the  giant  Sviatogor  one  day  is  riding 
over  the  plains,  he  meets  an  old  man  who  asks  him  to 
help  him  put  his  sack  on  his  back.  The  hero  would  lift 
the  sack  with  the  end  of  his  whip,  with  his  finger-tip, 
with  his  strong  hand,  —  he  cannot  do  it.  Then  he  alights 
from  his  horse  and  tries  with  both  hands,  with  tremen- 


ILIA  OF  MUROM. 


191 


dous  efforts,  to  lift  the  sack  which  is  so  heavy,  while  the 
sweat  drops  from  his  forehead.  Finally,  he  thinks  he 
has  got  it  up  to  his  knee  ;  but  it  is  he  himself  who  has 
sunk  down  to  the  knees  in  the  ground.  In  the  little 
sack,  God  had  put  the  weight  of  the  whole  earth. 

We  finally  find  a  characteristic  incident,  which  reminds 
us  of  one  of  our  national  traditions,  where  Sviatogor  and 
Ilia,  after  having  formed  a  foster-brotherhood,  visit  Svia- 
togor’s  old  father  together.  The  old  man  is  blind  and 
apparently  impotent.  He  asks  to  be  allowed  to  press 
Ilia’s  hand  to  see  if  the  Russian  bogatyrs  (the  generic 
name  of  the  national  heroes)  still  have  strong  limbs  and 
warm  blood.  At  a  nod  from  his  friend,  Ilia  grabs  a  huge 
iron  bar  glowing  in  the  fire  and  hands  it  to  the  old  man. 
“  Good  !  ”  says  he  to  the  young  hero.  “  I  feel  that  you 
have  a  strong  hand  and  hot  blood.”  This  is  the  story  of 
Holger  Danske  and  the  peasant.1 

There  is  no  one  among  the  heroes  of  these  bilim  who 
is  more  characteristic  and  typical  than  this  Ilia  of  Murom. 
He  belongs  to  the  cycle  which  has  Vladimir,  the  beautiful 
sun,  for  its  centre  ;  but  he  is  treated  by  the  poets  as  the 
son  of  a  peasant,  with  even  more  sympathy  than  the 
prince.  Regular  geological  layers  can  be  found  in  all 
the  epic  poems  of  Russia ;  we  can  see,  more  or  less 
plainly,  how  certain  conceptions  of  nature  which  are 
common  to  all  Aryan  peoples  about  the  eleventh  century 
began  to  assume  a  constantly  more  decided  Slavic  stamp. 
The  mythical  heroes,  which  were  at  first  like  those  of 
other  countries,  like  those  of  the  old  North,  for  instance, 
become  decidedly  Russian  and  decidedly  Greek-orthodox. 
They  are  born  in  a  definite  Russian  village  ;  they  are 
slain  on  a  definite  Russian  field.  The  celestial  moun¬ 
tains,  streams,  and  seas,  which,  in  the  oldest  mythological 

1  Rambaud:  La  Lassie  é pique,  pp.  41,  50,  111,  and  following. 


192 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


language,  indicated  clouds,  rain,  and  air,  become  Russian 
mountains  like  the  Ural,  Russian  rivers  like  the  Dnieper, 
and  Russian  seas  like  the  Caspian  Sea.  In  like  manner, 
we  see  Ilia  also  individualized.  It  is  related  of  him  that, 
before  he  makes  his  appearance  as  Bogatyr,  he  sits  for 
thirty  years  (the  constant  expression  for  a  very  long 
time)  immovable  and  lame.  Then  two  celestial  old  men 
who  come  to  Murom  call  him  up  from  his  sleep  of  death. 
It  is  in  vain  that  he  answers  that  he  can  move  neither 
hand  nor  foot.  When  they  call  to  him  again,  he  is  able 
to  raise  himself  and  open  the  door  to  them.  They  give 
him  a  strengthening  drink,  and  he  feels  an  immense 
power  suddenly  rippling  through  his  limbs.  Here  Ilia 
is  evidently  the  same  thing  as  nature,  which  is  awa¬ 
kened  from  its  long  winter  sleep. 

Ilia  is  thus  roused  to  action,  and  his  first  exploit  is  to 
cultivate  the  Russian  soil ;  with  superhuman  strength 
he  tears  up  a  whole  oak  forest  and  tranforms  it  to  arable 
land.  After  that  he  sallies  forth  to  free  peasants,  as  a 
hero  of  the  fields  to  protect  this  Russian  earth  against 
monsters,  robbers,  and  heathens.  We  have  seen  how  in 
these  conflicts  he  appears  as  the  God  of  Thunder.  He 
shoots  an  arrow  from  his  bow  against  an  oak,  and  the 
oak  is  entirely  split  to  pieces  as  if  struck  by  lightning ; 
he  swings  the  club  like  Perun,  the  hammer  like  Thor. 

But  then  we  see  him  like  a  true  Russian  hero  travel¬ 
ling  from  Murom  to  Tchernigof  to  free  the  land  from 
robbers  who  were  exhausting  it.  We  see  him  reject  the 
money  and  the  sovereignty  which  the  muzhiks  of  Tcher¬ 
nigof  would  confer  upon  him,  and  hasten  to  Kief  to 
Vladimir,  to  aid  the  national  prince  against  his  many 
enemies.  And  he  becomes  chief  Ataman  over  Vladi¬ 
mir’s  forces.  In  some  of  the  hilini,  at  this  point,  he 
develops  in  entire  consistency  with  the  popular  ideal. 


ILIA  A  CHRISTIAN  KNIGHT. 


193 


When  Vladimir,  one  day,  offers  him  an  insult,  he  gives 
his  men  a  sound  thrashing,  runs  down  into  the  court¬ 
yard,  batters  the  gold  tiles  down  from  the  roof  of  the 
palace  and  the  gold  crosses  from  the  churches,  and  with 
the  gold  he  entertains  all  the  muzhiks  and  beggars  of  the 
region  at  a  feast,  where  mead  and  spirits  flow  freely.  In 
other  bilini  he  is  suspected  by  Vladimir,  because  he  is 
slandered  by  the  Prince  of  the  Boyars  at  his  court, 
and  he  is  thrown  into  prison  to  starve  to  death.  He 
remains  there  for  three  years,  secretly  supported  by 
Vladimir’s  young  daughter.  When  Kief  was  attacked 
by  a  huge  Tatar  host,  and  Ilia  was  bitterly  missed, 
Vladimir,  led  by  the  advice  of  his  daughter,  finds  in  the 
underground  prison  the  hero,  “  the  old  Cossack,”  who  is 
sitting  at  a  plain  table,  reading  the  Evangelists.  Vladi¬ 
mir,  on  his  knees,  begs  him  for  help,  not  for  himself,  but 
for  the  churches  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  for  the 
widows  and  the  fatherless  in  the  holy  Russia.  Then 
Ilia  discloses  himself  as  the  Christian  knight,  who  pro¬ 
tects  the  defenceless  and  has  the  churches  near  to  his 
heart.  Nay,  he  travels  straight  to  Constantinople 
(Tsargrad)  and  liberates  the  Tsar  from  the  heathen 
army. 

It  is  now  peculiarly  Russian  that,  before  this  great  mil¬ 
itary  hero  starts  out  into  the  wide  world,  he  makes  the 
vow  that  he  will  never  soil  his  hands  with  blood.  The 
few  incidents  of  wildness  that  are  met  with  in  his  his¬ 
tory  are  plainly  mythical  elements,  as  when  he  kills  the 
robber  Solovei,  and  afterwards  the  terrible  Amazon  or 
Polenitsa  (who  at  last  shows  herself  to  be  his  daughter), 
tearing  them  both  into  small  pieces,  and  scattering  these 
upon  the  earth  to  make  it  fertile.  Otherwise  he  per¬ 
forms  all  his  exploits  with  the  greatest  calmness,  and, 
while  he  despises  danger,  he  is  fond  of  making  deri- 


194 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


sive  jokes  after  the  manner  of  the  Russian  peasants. 
Like  a  good  son  of  a  peasant  he  began  by  helping  his 
old  parents.  Everywhere,  as  at  Vladimir’s  table,  he 
compels  the  persons  of  position  to  give  place  to  those  of 
low  degree.  Like  a  genuine  muzhik  he  sometimes  drinks 
deeply  and  sleeps  out  his  drunkenness  ;  but  he  is  open- 
hearted  towards  his  prince  to  the  last  degree,  and  when 
the  latter  has  taken  it  ill  and  punished  him  cruelly  for 
it,  he  is  ready  to  forget  the  injury  as  soon  as  he  hears 
that  there  is  any  question  about  the  cause  of  the  defence¬ 
less.  He  never  brags  of  his  victories,  wishes  that  honors 
may  redound  to  the  glory  of  Russia,  and,  in  his  aversion 
to  soiling  his  hands  with  blood,  spares  his  enemies  when 
he  can  do  so,  and  sets  his  captives  free. 

It  is  a  very  remarkable  instance  of  Russian  imagina¬ 
tion  that  a  well-known  bilina,  with  the  title  “Why  there 
are  no  more  heroes  in  holy  Russia,”  for  the  purpose  of 
increasing  the  impression  of  the  power  there  is  in  this 
national  hero,  represents  Ilia  of  Murom  as  stronger 
than  Fate  itself,  to  which  this  people  otherwise  so 
patiently  submit,  and  which  conquers  all  the  other 
heroes. 

Ilia  had  become  fully  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
old,  but  his  powers  were  less  impaired  than  Stærkodder’s 
as  an  old  man,  when,  one  day,  while  riding  through  a 
forest,  he  read  on  a  stone  the  inscription,  “  If  you  go  to 
the  right  you  will  become  rich,  if  you  take  the  middle 
road  you  will  be  married,  if  you  go  to  the  left  you  will 
be  killed.”  The  old  Cossack,  as  he  is  called  here,  after 
considering  it,  concludes  that  it  does  not  become  his  age 
now  to  seek  for  wealth  or  marriage.  It  is  more  becom¬ 
ing  for  him  to  ride  in  the  road  in  which  death  is  found. 
After  riding  a  short  distance  he  meets  with  a  band  of 
robbers,  but  disperses  them,  turns  back  and  writes  upon 


ILIA’S  SELF-SACRIFICE. 


195 


the  stone,  “  I  rode  to  the  left  and  was  not  killed.”  By 
the  middle  road  he  comes  to  a  splendid  castle.  A  king’s 
daughter,  dazzlingly  beautiful,  first  waits  upon  him,  and 
then  asks  him  to  share  her  couch  on  a  bed  of  silk  and 
eider  down.  But  the  old  hero,  suspecting  treachery, 
declares  that  in  his  country  it  is  the  custom  for  women 
to  lie  down  first,  seizes  the  princess  by  her  belt  and 
throws  her  on  the  bed,  which  then  rushes  down  into  the 
vaults  of  the  palace.  He  liberates  the  forty  princes  she 
has  held  imprisoned  there,  causes  the  enchantress  to  be 
broken  on  the  wheel,  and  writes  a  second  time  on  the 
guide-board  at  the  cross-roads,  “I  rode  by  the  middle 
way  and  was  not  married.”  By  the  road  to  the  right  he 
finally  finds  an  iron  cross  and  under  it  a  great  treasure. 
He  divides  it  into  three  parts  and  builds  three  churches 
with  the  gold :  one  for  the  merciful  Saviour,  one  for  St. 
Nicholas  from  Mozhaisk,  and  one  for  the  bold  St.  George, 
so  he  can  properly  write  on  the  stone  :  “  I  rode  to  the 
right  and  did  not  become  rich.” 

From  this  btlina  we  can  perhaps  best  learn  with  what 
strength  the  Kussian  imagination  has  felt  obliged  to 
endow  its  heroes.  His  most  extraordinary  trait  of  char¬ 
acter,  nevertheless,  is  in  the  exhibition  of  self-sacrifice. 
He  does  not,  like  the  heroes  of  the  West,  perform  the 
act  from  a  feudal  devotion  to  his  prince  nor  from  a  feel¬ 
ing  of  duty  to  him ;  still  less,  like  the  Norse  heroes, 
from  ambition,  but  from  a  magnanimous  tenderness  for 
children  and  the  abandoned,  or  to  protect  the  country 
and  its  religion.  It  is  the  common  weal,  not  the  happi¬ 
ness  of  the  prince  or  his  own  honor,  which  lies  near  to 
his  heart.  While  Achilles  never  pardons  Agamemnon 
for  the  insult  he  received  from  the  king,  Ilia  forgets  on 
the  spot  what  Vladimir  has  done  to  him.  On  that 
account  the  Russian  scholars,  like  Orestes  Miller,  seek 


196 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


to  show  that  Ilia’s  feeling  of  duty  is  conclusively  sig¬ 
nificant  in  relation  to  the  idea  of  community,  which 
is  the  Russian  fundamental  idea  for  the  Slavophiles. 
They  see  in  Ilia’s  indifference  towards  mere  personality, 
and  his  willingness  to  serve  the  common  cause,  a  symbol 
of  the  original  tendency  of  the  Russian  spirit  to  com¬ 
munity  in  family,  society,  and  state.1 

Besides  this  popular  epic  poem,  moreover,  the  Rus¬ 
sian  literature  possesses  in  “  The  Story  of  Igor’s  Cam¬ 
paign  ”  an  old  epic  of  art  of  very  high  rank,  corresponding 
to  what  the  “  Song  of  Roland  ”  is  for  the  French,  and 
the  Niebelungenlied  for  the  Germans,  but  which,  never¬ 
theless,  has  the  fault,  which  would  be  very  serious  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Germans,  of  being  much  shorter. 

This  was  written  a  very  short  time  after  the  event 
which  it  describes  :  the  campaign  which  Igor  Sviatosla- 
vitch,  one  of  the  princes  from  Novgorod-Sieversk,  in 
1155,  undertook  against  the  pagan  Polovtsians,  a  nomadic 
tribe  of  Turco-Finnish  descent,  who  lived  on  the  banks 
of  the  Don  and  were  continually  attacking  the  careless 
Russians.  Igor  was  a  cousin  of  the  Prince  Imperial  of 
Kief,  who  the  year  before,  with  other  princes,  had  con¬ 
ducted  a  victorious  expedition  against  the  Polovtsians. 
Now,  for  his  own  part,  he  wished  to  cover  himself  with 
honor,  and  therefore  sallied  forth  with  his  brother 
Vsevolod,  “the  wild  bull,”  to  whom  he  was  greatly 
attached,  and  his  son  Vladimir.  But  his  expedition 
was  unfortunate ;  he  was  himself  taken  prisoner  and 
with  great  difficulty  escaped  from  captivity  by  the  aid  of 
a  trusty  esquire.  We  have  the  same  incident  related  in 
the  old  Russian  chronicle  of  the  monk  Ipat,  one  of  those 

1  Rambaud,  above  cited,  G2,  113.  A.  von  Reinholdt,  above  cited, 
p.  69.  Reinholdt  has  extracts  from  the  bilini  translated  in  the  origi¬ 
nal  metres. 


STORY  OF  IGOR. 


197 


who  wrote  a  continuation  of  the  chronicle  of  Nestor, 
and  we  can  see  from  that  the  endeavor  of  the  unknown 
poet  to  coniine  himself  to  the  historic  truth.  It  is  quite 
true  that  we  lind  in  the  “  Story  of  Igor  ”  many  tradi¬ 
tions  or  mythical  stories  incorporated  with  the  principal 
event,  while  the  monk  who  is  the  author  of  the  chron¬ 
icle  has  carefully  eliminated  every  heathen  expression 
and  element,  but  still  there  is  a  more  evident  attempt  in 
the  chronicler  to  endow  the  heroes  with  tine  qualities. 
When  the  battle  is  lost  the  princes  are  advised  to  fly. 
In  the  chronicle  they  refuse  to  do  so;  they  will  not 
desert  their  men,  their  common  soldiers,  but  will  live  or 
die  with  them.  The  story  has  nothing  of  this.  And 
when  Igor  is  taken  prisoner  according  to  the  chronicle 
he  refuses  for  a  long  time  to  escape  from  captivity, 
because  he  has  given  his  word  to  the  princes  of  the 
Polovtsians,  until  at  last  the  regard  for  Russia,  now  so 
exposed  to  the  enemy,  moves  him.  In  the  story  he  is 
at  once  ready  for  flight. 

When  we  mentally  compare  the  “  Story  of  Igor  ”  with 
the  heroic  lays  of  the  Edda,  which  are  probably  of 
greater  antiquity  and,  at  any  rate,  describe  a  rougher 
and  wilder  form  of  national  life,  the  Russian  poem,  no 
doubt  (in  contradistinction  to  the  Niebelungennot),  has 
the  inequality  and  lyrical  form  as  well  as  the  predilec¬ 
tion  for  a  vivid  dramatic  representation  in  common  with 
the  Norse  poems,  but  the  essential  feature  of  the  Slavic 
epic  is  still  entirely  distinct.  In  the  first  place,  the  lat¬ 
ter  possesses  an  individuality.  We  do  not  know  the 
author’s  name,  but  his  entity  stands  out  very  distinctly 
before  the  reader,  rich  as  it  is  in  enthusiasm  and  piety. 
He  speaks  in  his  own  name,  stands  as  an  individual 
responsible  for  his  words,  is  conscious  of  a  personal  style 
of  composition  which  is  less  flighty  and  fantastic  than 


198 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  style  of  the  older  seers  and  bards,  whom  he  in  other 
respects  admires.  In  the  next  place,  you  feel  that  his 
love  for  the  poetic  art  is  not  less  strong  than  his  admira¬ 
tion  for  the  deeds  of  the  princes  of  his  day.  He  is  an 
enthusiast  for  poetry.  It  is,  as  he  expresses  it,  his  inten¬ 
tion  to  free  himself  from  the  poetic  traditions  ;  he  does 
not  wish  to  borrow  from  his  predecessors  “the  old  words.’: 
From  the  bilini  we  can  see  what  he  meant  by  this. 
There  is  found  in  them,  just  as  in  the  Homeric  poems, 
a  standing  supply  of  descriptive  epithets.  The  moun¬ 
tains  are  always  gray,  the  sea  always  blue,  the  sun 
always  red.  The  earth  is  our  mother,  the  damp  earth. 
They  always  run  on  their  swift  feet,  always  take  another 
by  his  white  hand,  etc.  The  unknown  poet  has  plainly 
wished  to  adopt  as  little  of  that  as  possible.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  we  meet  in  him  certain  constantly  recurring  expres¬ 
sions  which  are  evidently  inherited,  as,  to  drink  the  Don 
dry  with  his  helmet,  to  set  ten  falcons  on  a  flock  of 
swans,  to  sow  the  earth  with  human  bones,  and  certain 
constantly  recurring  epithets,  as,  Vsevolod,  the  wild  bull, 
the  falcon  Igor,  and  his  son  the  young  falcon,  and  others. 

As  a  man,  the  author  of  “  Igor’s  Campaign  ”  is  far  milder 
in  his  emotions  than  the  author  of  even  the  mildest  of 
the  heroic  poems  of  the  Edda,  “  The  Songs  of  Helge.” 
The  style  in  which,  in  his  poem,  Yaroslåvna  expresses 
her  longing  for  Igor  during  his  absence  in  the  war,  and 
her  fear  for  the  life  of  her  lover,  is  more  like  Ingeborg’s 
languishing  lamentations  in  Tegner’s  poem  than  it  is  to 
Sigrun’s  loss  of  Helge  in  the  Edda.  And  the  whole  life 
of  emotion  and  nature,  which  the  nameless  poet  has 
spread  out  before  us,  makes  an  entirely  characteristic 
impression,  by  the  grand,  childlike  simplicity  with  which 
the  association  between  man  and  nature  is  interpreted 
and  described.  The  whole  of  nature  is  alarmed  when 


LAMENTATION  FOK  DEFEAT. 


199 


Igor  starts  upon  his  unfortunate  rule  to  the  Don :  tiie 
sun  is  darkened,  the  night  groans,  the  beasts  howl  in 
anticipation  of  the  impending  danger.  Both  Yaroslavna 
and  Igor,  on  their  part,  address  winds  and  streams  as 
if  they  were  men ;  nay,  give  them  titles  and  compli¬ 
mentary  words  just  as  plainly  as  it  is  done  in  the  Iliad 
two  thousand  years  before.  And  the  river  Donyets  gives 
Igor  an  answer.  The  living  naturalism,  the  transfer  of 
human  qualities  and  emotions  to  nature,  is  so  prominent 
here  that  it  is  noticed  as  the  expressive  personal  naivete 
of  the  characteristic  poet. 

Finally,  the  patriotism  of  this  epic  and  of  its  author  is 
characteristic  in  the  highest  degree.  Patriotism  per¬ 
meates  and  constitutes  its  motive  ;  a  love  for  the  Rus¬ 
sian  land,  which  breaks  forth  not  only  in  mourning  over 
the  triumph  of  the  heathen  Polovtsians,  but  even  more 
vehemently  in  wrath  and  laments  on  account  of  the  dis¬ 
cord  between  the  Russian  princes  who,  at  the  close  of 
this  pregnant  period,  rent  the  land  asunder  with  civil  war. 
When  the  defeat  is  sustained,  the  singer  exclaims:  — 

“The  grass  bowed  down  in  pain.  The  crowns  of  the 
trees  bowed  down  to  the  earth  in  sorrow.  For  the  cheer¬ 
less  time  was  already  come,  brothers,  when  it  was  void 
of  power,  when  injustice  spread  itself  in  the  ranks  of 
the  descendants  of  Dazhbog  [princely  power].  Quiet, 
like  a  young  girl,  it  stole  into  our  land,  and,  as  if  with 
the  wings  of  a  swan,  dabbled  in  the  waters  of  the  Don 
and  of  the  blue  sea.  It  awakened  the  hours  of  disaster. 
Then  the  contests  of  the  princes  against  the  heathen 
were  broken  off ;  brother  said  to  brother,  ‘This  is  mine, 
even  this  also  is  mine.’  And  the  princes  began  to  say 
about  small  things,  ‘This  is  great.’  But  the  heathens 
from  all  sides  fell  down  upon  the  Russian  land.” 

The  old  poet  is  a  skilful  battle-painter.  Like  the 


200 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


authors  of  the  old  Northern  ballads,  he  embellishes  his 
poems  by  descriptions  of  many  battles  which  he  has 
seen  or  in  which  he  lias  participated;  for  example  :  — 

“  The  Russians  fenced  round  the  wide  field  with  their 
purple-colored  shields,  sought  honor  for  themselves  and 
glory  for  their  princes.  At  daybreak  on  Friday,  they 
crushed  the  heathen  host  of  the  Polovtsians  under  their 
feet,  carried  the  beautiful  Polovtsian  girls  away  with 
them,  and  with  them  gold  and  veils  and  costly  velvet 
garments.  With  the  ribbons  and  capes  and  furs  and 
finery  of  all  sorts  they  began  to  build  bridges  over  pools 
and  swamps.  But  the  red  standards,  the  white  banners, 
and  the  spears  with  the  silver  points  fell  to  the  lot  of 
the  brave  Sviatoslavitch.” 

Or  read  the  description  of  the  battle  on  the  following 
day  :  — 

“On  the  next  day  the  blood-red  light  very  early 
heralded  the  dawn.  Black  clouds  swept  in  from  the 
sea;  they  would  cover  the  four  suns  [the  four  Russian 
leaders  of  the  army],  and  the  blue  lightning  trembled 
in  them.  There  was  heavy  thunder.  The  arrows  flew 
like  rain  from  the  great  Don.  Then  the  spears  were 
splintered ;  then  the  swords  struck  against  the  helmets 
of  the  Polovtsians  by  the  river,  by  Kayala,  near  the 
great  Don.  O  Russian  land  !  thou  art  still  protected. 
But  behold  the  winds,  Stribog’s  offspring ;  they  blow  a 
sea  of  arrows  against  Igor’s  brave  warriors.  The  earth 
trembles ;  sadly  flow  the  rivers ;  the  field  is  covered 
with  dust ;  the  banners  rustle  ;  the  Polovtsians  come 
from  the  Don  and  from  the  sea,  and  from  all  sides 
surround  the  Russian  army  ;  the  children  of  the  devil 
beset  the  shrieking  battle-field  ;  still  the  brave  Russians 
enclose  it  with  their  purple-colored  shields.” 

But  the  pearl  of  the  poem  is  Yaroslåvna’s  lamentation 
and  Igor’s  flight. 


Y ABOSLA  VNA'S  LAMENT. 


201 


“Listen,  the  voice  of  Yaroslavna!  Like  a  cuckoo  she 
complains  alone  early  in  the  morning.  ‘  I  will  fly/ 
she  says,  ‘  like  a  cuckoo  over  the  Danube  ;  will  plunge 
my  beaver-skin  sleeves  in  the  Kayåla’s  stream  ;  will  dry 
the  prince’s  bloody  wounds  on  his  stiffening  limbs.’ 
Yaroslavna  weeps  early  in  the  morning  on  the  wall  at 
Putivl,  and  thus  she  speaks :  ‘  0  wind,  thou  mighty 
wind,  why,  oh,  Lord !  dost  thou  blow  so  hard  ?  Why  dost 
thou  boar  the  arrows  of  the  Chan  on  thy  light  wings  against 
my  lover’s  men?  Was  it  not  enough  for  thee  to  blow  the 
mountain  waves  out  from  under  the  clouds  when  thou 
didst  rock  the  ships  on  the  blue  sea  ?  Why  does  the 
breath  of  thy  spirit  waft  my  joy  away  over  the  grass  of 
the  plains  ?  ’  Yaroslavna  weeps  early  in  the  morning  on 
the  walls  at  Putivl,  and  thus  she  speaks  :  ‘  O  Dnieper, 
the  famous  !  thou  hast  broken  through  the  rocks  in  the 
country  of  the  Polovtsians,  hast  rocked  Sviatolaf’s  ships 
against  Kobyak’s  1  hosts.  Lord,  bring  my  lover  back  to 
me,  so  that  I  no  longer  shall  send  him  my  tears  over 
the  sea  !  ’  Yaroslavna  weeps  on  the  wall  at  Putivl,  and 
thus  she  speaks  :  ‘  Thou  clear  and  thrice  clear  sun  !  thou 
art  warm  and  beautiful  for  all.  Why  dost  thou  aim  thy 
burning  beams  on  my  lover’s  men  ?  Why  hast  thou  in 
the  arid  desert  dried  their  bows  together  in  their  hands  ? 
Why  hast  thou  tortured  them  with  thirst,  so  that  the 
quiver  became  heavy  on  their  backs  ?  ’ 

“  Towards  midnight  the  sea  became  disturbed  ;  whirl¬ 
winds  raised  themselves  among  the  fogs.  God  shows 
Prince  Igor  a  way  out  of  the  country  of  the  Polovtsians 
to  the  Russian  land,  to  his  father’s  golden  throne.  The 
glow  of  the  evening  is  extinguished.  Does  Igor  sleep  ? 
No,  he  is  awake  ;  he  measures  in  his  mind  the  plains 
from  the  great  Don  to  the  little  Donyets.  Listen  !  the 
1  Prince  of  the  Polovtsians. 


202 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


sound  of  his  horse  at  midnight.  Ovlur  whistles  on  this 
side  of  the  river,  gives  information  to  the  prince :  Igor 
must  not  remain  longer.  The  earth  roars,  the  grass 
whistles,  the  guards  of  the  Polovtsians  draw  near. 
Then  Igor  leaps  up  like  a  weasel  in  the  rushes  ;  like  a 
white  sea-duck,  he  leaps  into  the  water.  He  jumps  on 
his  fleet  horse.  Soon  after  he  leaps  down  again,  and, 
like  a  wolf,  with  light  steps  he  hastens  to  the  meadows 
of  the  Donyets ;  flies  like  a  falcon  in  the  fog,  killing 
geese  and  swans  for  his  meals  morning,  noon,  and  night. 
While  Prince  Igor  flies  like  a  falcon,  Ovlur  runs  like  a  wolf, 
both  dripping  with  cold  dew  in  the  grass  of  the  steppes. 
For  they  have  broken  the  wind  of  their  fleet  horses. 

“  Donyets  said,  ‘  Prince  Igor,  thou  shalt  have  no  little 
honor  now,  and  Kontchak  no  little  wrath,  and  the 
Russian  land  no  little  joy.’  Igor  answers,  ‘  O  Donyets  ! 
no  little  honor  hast  thou  now,  thou  who  borest  the  prince 
on  thy  billows,  made  him  a  bed  on  the  green  grass  on 
thy  banks,  and  covered  him  with  warm  fog  in  the  shade 
of  green  trees  ;  thou  who  causedst  him  to  be  guarded  by 
the  sea-duck  on  the  water,  by  the  gull  on  the  rivers,  by 
the  wild-duck  in  the  air !  Not  such,’  said  he,  ‘  is  the 
river  Stugna,  whose  stream  is  so  dangerous  when  it  has 
swallowed  foreign  brooks,  and  which  has  broken  our  barks 
against  the  roots  of  the  trees  on  its  shore.  Nor  is  the 
Dnieper  such  a  river.  That  thrust  our  young  prince 
Rostislav  back  from  its  sombre  banks.  Rostislav’s 
mother  now  weeps  over  the  young  prince.  The  flowers 
wither,  consumed  by  grief  ;  the  tree  bowed  its  crown 
down  to  the  earth  in  sorrow.’  ”  1 

1  Wenceslaus  Hanka:  Igor  Smtoslavitch.  Prag,  1821.  (Text, 
Bohemian  and  German  translation.)  Wolfsohn:  Die  Schonioissen- 
schaftliche  Litteratur  der  Russen.  Leipzig,  1843,  pp.  182-226  (the  best 
translation  in  German).  Rambaud,  above  cited,  pp.  192-223. 


TUE  WRITTEN  EPIC  ARISTOCRATIC.  203 


From  these  extracts  we  can  form  a  conception  of  the 
style  and  tone  of  the  Russian  epic.  We  see  that  they 
are  very  different  from  those  of  the  heroic  poems  of  the 
Edda.  This  written  epic  is  unique  in  Russian  literature. 
It  differs  from  the  bxlini  of  the  Kief-circle  by  its  purely 
historical  character,  since  none  of  its  leading  actors  are 
demi-gods,  but  all  the  heroes  who  figure  there  are  men, 
who  conquer  or  suffer  in  a  purely  human  manner.  In 
the  next  place,  this  epic  is  characteristic  from  its  stamp 
of  aristocratic  culture,  since  it  was  evidently  written 
with  the  purpose  in  view,  like  the  old  Norse  laudatory 
poems,  of  being  recited  before  the  body  guard  of  a 
prince.  Therefore  it  does  not  extol  the  masses  in  the 
person  of  a  popular  hero,  but  sings  of  the  chiefs  and 
leaders  of  the  army  as  the  leading  men.  Still,  however 
patriotic  the  poem  is,  it  is  nevertheless  inspired  by  the 
patriotism  of  the  princely  power  and  of  the  highest 
culture. 


II. 


The  Russian  national  literature,  like  the  Danish, 
dates  from  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  is  even  a 
little  younger  than  the  latter.  The  foundation  was 
laid  by  Lomonosof,  thirty  years  after  Holberg  became 
the  founder  of  ours.  But  between  the  ancient  literature 
written  in  the  Church  Slavic  together  with  the  bilim, 
which  date  from  a  period  before  the  reign  of  the  Tatars, 
and  the  modern  Russian  book-world  there  lie  the  popular 
ballads,  the  short  lyrical  poems,  Little  Russian  as  well 
as  Great  Russian,  rich  and  attractive  from  their  tender¬ 
ness  and  their  sadness. 

Little-Russian  and  Great-Russian  popular  ballads,  each 
written  in  its  own  dialect,  sung  by  widely  different  peo¬ 
ple,  belong,  in  fact,  to  two  different  literatures,  of  which 
one,  in  later  times,  by  despotic  command,  has  been  sup¬ 
pressed  ;  but,  in  spite  of  the  differences,  the  two  groups 
present  so  many  points  of  resemblance  that  they  influ¬ 
ence  the  mind  in  a  cognate  manner. 

The  Little-Russian  ballads  treat  exclusively  of  the 
life  of  the  Cossack  people  in  older  and  later  times.  The 
Ukraine  steppes  are  the  theatre  of  this  life,  but  the  bal¬ 
lads  also  follow  the  Cossack  in  all  his  bold  excursions 
away  from  home  for  centuries.  They  present  picture 
after  picture  of  the  dangers  in  the  martial  life  on  horse¬ 
back,  in  eternal  conflicts  with  enemies  in  the  east  and 
west.  There  is  the  mortal  hour  of  the  wounded  Cossack 
longing  for  home  in  a  foreign  land ;  the  corpse  which  is 

204 


POPULAR  BALLADS. 


205 


washed  by  the  cold  rain  and  whose  eyes  are  picked  out 
by  the  birds  of  prey  ;  the  lamentation  of  the  Cossack 
girl  when  the  signal  for  the  departure  is  given,  and  her 
lover  rides  away ;  her  ardent  regret  for  him  when  he  is 
absent  on  a  military  expedition  in  a  foreign  land  ;  the 
lamentation  of  the  old  Cossack  over  the  young  men  who 
have  disappeared ;  the  young  Cossack’s  self-reliance  and 
confidence  in  victory ;  the  sorrow  of  the  lovers  at  the 
gossip  about  them,  and  the  ignominy  which  they  who 
would  separate  them  heap  upon  the  loving  girl,  —  all  this 
in  short  lyrical  poems  different  from  the  more  narrative 
form  of  the  Cossack  duma ,  which  is  fond  of  describing  a 
definite  historical  person  or  exploit.1 

The  Great-Russian  ballads  are  of  several  kinds  :  partly 
being  the  more  stereotyped  wedding  and  Christmas 
verses ;  partly  the  so-called  ballads  of  men  of  adven¬ 
ture,  that  is,  of  highwaymen, — the  semi-pathetic,  semi- 
humorous,  always  humble  ballads  of  those  who  are  under 
sentence  of  death,  which  open  the  perspective  to  the 
gallows,  and  to  that  extent  have  a  certain  resemblance 
to  several  poems  of  Francois  Villon  ;  and  partly  (the 
great  bulk)  of  genuine  popular  ballads,  nearly  all  of 
which  are  about  the  longing  and  sorrows  of  lovers.2 

The  Little-Russian  and  Great-Russian  popular  ballads 
agree  in  two  principal  features  :  in  the  comparison  be¬ 
tween  a  display  of  nature  and  a  mental  condition,  which 
is  continually  evoked  by  companionship  with  nature  and 
a  poetic  view  thereof,  and  in  the  richness  of  expression 
for  the  most  varied  moods  and  shades  of  a  love  upon 
whose  multifarious  sorrows  they  dwell  with  ineffable 
sadness. 

1  Comp.  Fr.  Bodenstedt:  Die  poetische  Ukraine,  Sammlitnr/  Klein- 
russischer  Volkslieder.  See  G.  Brandes:  Indtryk  fra  Polen,  220,  227. 

2  See  the  poems  in  Wolfsolin:  Die  schdnwissenschaftliche  Litter¬ 
atur  der  Russen,  227-272. 


206 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  natural  parallel  is  of  this  sort :  — 

Little  Russian :  “  A  hop  vine  alone  in  the  garden  — 
hurled  itself  down  to  the  earth. — A  young  little  girl 
among  men  — wept  very  bitterly.  —  ‘0  green,  blossoming 
hop,  say  — why  do  you  not  twine?’  —  ‘Oh,  dear  young 
girl,  —  why  do  you  grieve  over  your  fate  ?  ’  ”  etc. 

Great  Russian  :  “  Between  two  mountains,  two  high 
mountains,  —  grew  up  a  slim  white  birch  tree  —  a  slim 
birch  tree,  a  branching  —  where  the  sun  warmed  it  not, 
and  the  moon  and  the  starry  host  shed  not  their  light,  — 
where  only  the  blasts  shook  it,  —  where  only  violent  tor¬ 
rents  of  rain  fell  upon  it  —  so  among  our  neighbors  — 
grew  up  a  sweet  little  girl,  —  praised  for  her  beauty  and 
neatness,  —  her  slenderness  and  plumpness  and  dainti¬ 
ness,”  etc. 

So  far  as  richness  in  expressions  of  love  is  concerned, 
it  may  be  regarded  as  scientifically  proved  that,  of  all 
living  and.  dead  languages,  there  is  none  so  rich  in 
expression  as  the  Russian  in  both  of  its  dialects.  The 
philologist  Carl  Abel  has  written  an  essay  which  gives 
a  vivid  impression  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  Russian  lan¬ 
guage  in  this  respect.  (“The  Conception  of  Love  in 
some  Ancient  and  Modern  Languages.”)  They  have,  for 
the  expression  of  love  as  a  pure,  simple  emotion,  as  an 
involuntary  attraction,  the  noun  liubov  and  the  verb  liubity 
and  the  adjectives  liubezni,  liubeni,  liubdi,  Hub  (loved  for 
superiority,  by  voluntary  choice,  by  taste,  from  interest) ; 
next,  zaznoba,1  which  indicates  the  growing  love  with  its 
sweet  apprehensions  and  its  tender  hopes.  Milost  is 
the  active  love  in  endless  shades  :  preference,  good  will, 
partiality,  grace.  Blayost  is  especially  grace  in  all  its 
goodness,  warmth,  and  inexhaustibility.  The  study  of 
languages  shows  that,  while  love  among  the  Romans  in 
1  Passion,  “flame.” 


RUSSIAN  PET-NAMES. 


207 


particular  was  love  for  the  family,  for  kinsmen,  and 
regarded  as  a  duty,  among  the  Hebrews  love  for  the 
whole  tribe,  and,  at  the  highest  point,  love  for  the  whole 
of  mankind,  and  was  regarded  as  a  religion  ;  the  Russian 
sentiment,  according  to  the  derivation  of  the  words,  is 
caressing  and  full  of  charm,  exclusively  a  natural  instinct, 
far  less  conscious,  circumspect,  and  trustworthy,  always 
wholly  involuntary. 

The  domain  of  Russian  love  is  the  tender  flattery 
which  expresses  itself  in  innumerable  ingratiating  dimin¬ 
utives.  Of  liubou,  love,  as  a  woman’s  name,  the  common 
people  make  use  of  the  names  Liuba,  Liubka,  Liubkascha, 
Liubaschenka,  Liubashetchka,  Liubotchka,  Liubutchka, 
Liubuslienka,  Liubushetchka,  Liubenka,  and  even  many 
others,  each  with  its  different  shade  of  tenderness  and 
caressing.  And,  however  numerous  the  linguistic  ex¬ 
pressions  for  the  sentiments  and  moods  of  love  are, 
naturally  just  as  numerous  are  the  sentiments  and 
moods  themselves.1 

Here  is  a  short  erotic  poem,  which  is  typical :  — 

“  Thou  ash  tree,  oh,  thou  full  of  branches !  —  when 
didst  thou  sprout,  when  didst  thou  grow  up?  —  Thou 
ash  tree,  oh,  thou  full  of  branches  !  —  when  wast  thou  in 
blossom,  and  when  didst  thou  ripen  ?  ” 

“  I  sprouted  in  spring,  shot  up  in  summer  —  I  was  in 
blossom  in  the  spring,  became  a  tree  in  the  summer.” 

“  Under  thee  there  grows,  under  thee,  thou  Ash  !  —  no 
poppy  flowers  and  no  grass, — there  grows  no  grass,  there 
burns  no  tire.  —  There  burns  no  tire,  yet  a  heart  so  warm. 
—  Yet  the  heart  so  warm  in  a  youth’s  breast  —  it  burns, 
burns,  nay,  boils  like  pitch  —  boils  in  longing  for  my 
little  swan  —  my  swan,  my  dove,  my  little  soul,  —  my 
charming  dove,  my  dearly  beloved.  — 

1  See  Carl  Abel:  Linguistic  Essays,  pp.  23-78. 


208 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


“  Oh,  thou  soul,  my  soul,  my  beautiful  maid  —  in  the 
hour  of  daybreak,  when  the  morning  was  red  —  when 
the  shining  sun  rose  up  in  the  heavens  —  without  leave 
of  thy  father  and  mother  —  without  even  once  seeing 
thy  friend  —  thou  left  life,  thou  went  away  from  here. — 

“Oh,  ye  winds,  ye  warm  winds,  ye!  —  warm  winds,  ye 
who  waft  towards  autumn  —  blow  ye  not  here,  I  need 
ye  not.  • — -  But  come  only  thou  storm,  oh,  thou  roaring  ! 
—  From  the  regions  of  the  North  fly  only  thou  hither  !  — 
Split  only  with  thy  breath  the  moist  earth  —  split  the 
wide  field,  split  the  broad  field !  —  Oh,  open  for  me, 
storm !  open  for  me  here  my  grave.  —  And  ah,  let  me, 
let  me  for  the  last  time  —  here  take  leave  of  my  loved 
friend  —  of  my  loved  friend,  of  my  dearly  beloved. — 
Only  a  tear-kiss  amid  weeping  so  bitter!  — Then  I  expire 
and  die  with  her.” 

When  from  these  tones  of  nature  you  come  to  the 
lyrical  in  the  founder  of  the  later  Russian  literature,  the 
transition  is  abrupt,  so  abrupt  that  for  a  man  of  the 
present  day  it  demands  a  very  great  interest  in  the  his¬ 
torical  development  of  a  great  people,  not  to  put  Lomon- 
osof  aside  with  disgust.  For  he,  who,  moreover,  was  a  far 
greater  philosopher  than  poet,  belongs  absolutely  to  that 
tendency  of  taste  in  the  eighteenth  century  for  which 
the  inartistic  poetry  of  the  people  was  no  poetry  at  all, 
and  which  saw  the  end  and  aim  of  lyric  poetry  in  the 
strained  pathos  of  the  style  of  the  ode  and  its  artistic 
form  of  regular  combination.  The  modern  artistic  poem, 
in  most  countries,  begins  in  this  eighteenth  century 
by  separating  itself  as  far  as  possible  from  the  ballads 
of  the  people  and  from  everything  which  belongs  to 
them,  so  as  for  the  first  time  at  the  beginning  of  the 
new  century  to  seek  backwards  for  simplicity,  unity, 
and  nature. 


BOYHOOD  OF  LOMONOSOF. 


209 


Lomonosof,  whom  Byelinski  has  called  the  “  Peter  the 
Great  of  Russian  literature,”  was  obliged  to  shape  the 
modern  Russian  language,  as  a  literary  language,  entirely 
anew.  Before  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  they  wrote 
in  Church  Slavic,  after  that  a  mixture  of  Church  Slavic 
and  Russian.  As  a  boy,  Lomonosof  had  drawn  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  people  from  the  purest  fountain,  had  heard 
it  as  it  fell  from  the  lips  of  the  Russian  fishermen  in 
Archangel,  but  he  had  studied  Slavic  at  an  early  age  in 
the  old  church  books.  He  was  thus  able  to  mould  his 
language  with  the  confidence  of  a  man  of  intellect,  and 
created  the  newer  prose  style  and  the  Russian  metre  and 
wrote  the  first  sonorous  verse  existing  in  Russian,  com¬ 
posed  by  any  poet  whose  name  is  known. 

Loinonosof’s  importance  for  Russia  is,  as  already  stated, 
closely  akin  to  that  of  Holberg  for  Norway  and  Den¬ 
mark.  He  had  a  wonderfully  many-sided  genius,  devel¬ 
oped  by  a  career  which  is  almost  marvellous.  Mikhail 
Vasilyevitcli  Lomonosof  was  born  in  1711,  in  a  village  in 
the  department  of  Archangel.  His  father  was  a  royal 
serf,  who  earned  his  living  as  a  fisherman,  and  who  used 
to  take  the  boy  with  him  out  in  his  boat.  From  his 
tenth  to  his  sixteenth  year  the  intelligent  boy  thus 
sailed  about  every  summer  over  the  White  Sea  and  the 
Arctic  Ocean,  receiving  impressions  of  a  great  and  wild 
nature,  experiencing  the  poor  man’s  hard  fight  for  bread, 
seeing  salt-works,  cloisters,  religious  meetings,  and  among 
the  people  of  the  region  he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the 
character  of  the  Russian  people  in  its  purity.  —  He 
learned  to  read  and  write  from  the  village  priest,  devoured 
one  or  two  old  church  books,  which  were  the  only  read¬ 
ing  available  to  him,  discovered  that  Latin  must  be  learned 
in  order  to  acquire  knowledge  of  a  wider  scope,  and 
therefore  ran  away  from  home  at  the  age  of  seventeen 


210 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


and  went  ten  miles  on  foot  to  catch  a  wagon-train  of 
frozen  fish  which  was  going  from  Archangel  to  Moscow. 
There  he  was  dropped  in  the  market-place,  and  by  the 
accidental  kindness  of  a  monk  a  few  days  later  was  taken 
to  a  cloister  school,  which  indeed  only  received  the  sons 
of  the  nobility,  but  where  his  ancestry  was  overlooked. 
Here,  and  for  a  short  time  in  Kief,  his  progress  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  in  the  Slavic  language,  in  philosophy, 
physics,  and  mathematics,  is  that  of  a  genius.  When 
he  had  completed  his  courses  at  Moscow  and  Kief,  he 
obtained  the  privilege  of  being  sent  to  the  Academy  at 
St.  Petersburg  and  to  Germany,  where  at  Marburg  he 
attended  Chr.  Wolf’s  lectures  on  philosophy,  and  at 
Friburg  he  studied  practical  metallurgy  and  mining. 

He  had  previously  made  attempts  at  writing  verse  in 
St.  Petersburg,  and  now  he  showed  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  poet  Johann  Christian  Gunther,  forgotten  in  our 
time  outside  of  Germany,  by  transferring  his  metres  to 
the  Russian  language.  His  first  ode  to  the  Tsaritsa 
Anna,  a  memorial  ode  celebrating  the  conquest  of 
Chotin,  is  an  exact  imitation  of  a  poem  by  Gunther 
in  honor  of  Prince  Eugene.  Lomonosof,  perhaps,  sur¬ 
passes  his  German  model  in  spirit,  and  is  possibly  his 
equal  in  the  domain  of  the  ode  in  bombast ;  but  he  does 
not  at  all  succeed,  like  Gunther,  in  writing  bold  and 
audacious  verses  about  his  personal  experiences  or  his 
erotic  inclinations. 

In  1740  he  is  secretly  married  to  the  daughter  of  a 
poor  tailor  in  Marburg,  runs  in  debt,  and,  when  he  is 
threatened  with  the  debtor’s  prison,  flies  secretly  from 
the  town  without  even  telling  his  wife,  and  begins  to 
beg  his  way  on  foot  with  the  intention  of  getting  to 
Holland.  On  the  way  he  falls  in  with  a  Prussian  re¬ 
cruiting  officer  with  recruits,  who  gets  him  drunk,  gives 


lomon6sof  as  scientist. 


211 


him  the  bounty  money,  and  receives  his  promise.  The 
next  morning  Lomonosof  wakes  up  in  uniform,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  his  prayers  and  protestations,  is  a  Prussian 
cavalry  soldier.  He  is  taken  to  the  fortress  at  Wesel. 
He  deserts,  hotly  pursued,  amid  dangers  and  anxieties, 
crossing  the  Westphalian  boundaries,  and  arrives  at  Am¬ 
sterdam,  representing  himself  to  be  a  poor  student  from 
Saxony.  In  Holland  the  Russian  minister  takes  charge 
of  him,  and  sends  him  back  to  St.  Petersburg. 

From  the  Hague  he  wrote  to  his  wife  for  the  first 
time  since  his  flight ;  but  in  St.  Petersburg,  where  he 
did  not  feel  that  he  was  in  a  situation  to  support  his 
wife  and  the  child  she  had  brought  to  him,  he  allowed 
two  whole  years  to  pass  without  any  communication, 
until  she,  through  the  Russian  minister  at  the  Hague, 
finally  learned  where  he  was,  and  with  his  consent  came 
to  him. 

From  1745  Lomonosof  labored  at  St.  Petersburg  as 
professor  of  chemistry  and  experimental  physics,  and 
from  1755  began  to  advocate  a  plan  for  the  re-organiza- 
tion  of  the  Scientific  Society,  in  which  he  fought  against 
the  encroachments  of  the  Germans,  hitherto  the  sole 
masters  of  the  situation ;  and,  as  the  passionate,  nay, 
fanatical  exponent  of  Russian  nationality,  was  soon 
guilty  of  no  less  scientific  and  personal  encroachments. 

Here  at  home  he  developed  his  whole  genius  as  a 
scientist.  He  was  the  first  Russian  naturalist  who,  on 
the  foundation  of  the  scientific  results  of  Western 
Europe,  which  he  laid  before  his  pupils,  was  an  inde¬ 
pendent  inventor  of  machines  and  apparatus,  and  an 
independent  discoverer  of  hitherto  unknown  laws  of 
nature.  The  great  mathematician  Euler  gave  the  most 
appreciative  praise  to  his  work  on  the  phenomena  of 
electricity,  light,  and  air.  Euler  publicly  declared  that 


212 


IMPRESSION'S  OF  RUSSIA. 


“  this  talented  man  did  honor  to  the  academy  and  the 
•whole  people.”  In  physics,  Lomonosof,  independent 
of  Franklin,  explained  a  theory  of  electricity  in  the 
air  and  of  the  Northern  Lights,  which  accords  in  many 
points  with  Franklin’s,  and  in  some  other  respects  he 
is  even  more  advanced.  In  mineralogy  he  was  the  first 
to  point  out  the  vegetable  origin  of  amber  and  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  coal  from  peaty  soil  under  the  influence  of 
subterranean  gases.  In  astronomy  he  was  the  discov¬ 
erer  of  the  atmosphere  of  Venus.  Finally,  as  a  chemist 
and  geologist,  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  popular- 
descriptive  powers. 

His  studies  in  the  Russian  language,  literature,  and 
history  made  an  epoch.  His  Russian  grammar  has  con¬ 
trolled  education  in  his  native  land  for  half  a  century. 
He  wrote  books  about  Russian  style,  rhetoric,  and  metres 
at  the  same  time  that  he  himself  was  working  as  a  poet 
and  orator.  Finally,  he  is  Russia’s  pioneer  in  mosaic 
art.  There  still  exist  from  his  hand  a  well  executed 
portrait  in  mosaic  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  a  large  work 
representing  the  battle  at  Poltava. 

It  is  this  man  of  genius  who,  for  the  first  time  since 
the  introduction  into  Russia  of  the  intellectual  and  in 
some  directions  material  foreign  ascendency  by  the  Tsar 
Peter,  gave  an  organ  to  the  old  Russian  national  feeling, 
while  he  at  the  same  time  made  himself  its  poetical 
exponent  and  its  practical  champion, — the  latter  being 
carried  out  to  the  most  infatuated  chauvinism.  His 
great  reputation  in  this  generation,  when  his  poetry  is 
no  longer  read,  depends  on  the  fact  that  it  was  he 
■who  gave  the  first  impulse  towards  the  liberation  of 
the  Russian  intellectual  life  and  of  Russian  science, 
then  just  dawning,  from  the  foreign  and  especially  from 
the  German  yoke. 


PLAN  OF  TUE  ACADEMY. 


213 


When  Lomonosof  was  admitted  to  the  Academy  of 
St.  Petersburg,  there  were  two  illustrious  Germans,  Ger¬ 
hard  Muller  and  A.  L.  von  Schlozer,  who  had  laid  the 
foundation  for  all  historical  investigation  in  Russia,  who 
were  the  influential  persons  in  the  Academy,  where, 
moreover,  they  found  themselves  surrounded  almost 
exclusively  by  their  countrymen.  At  the  request  of 
the  Tsar  Peter,  the  founder  of  the  Academy,  Leibnitz, 
had  prepared  a  plan  therefor,  expressly  designed  to 
‘•'bring  the  culture  of  the  Avest  into  Russia,  and  to  be 
instrumental  in  teaching  the  Russians  to  knoAv  and 
appreciate  it,  and  in  thus  causing  them  to  cease  to  be 
regarded  as  barbarians.”  It  was  in  his  spirit  that  only 
books  of  instruction  of  the  Academy  were  printed  in 
Russian,  while  the  purely  scientific  publications,  which, 
moreover,  would  not  have  found  many  readers  if  printed 
in  Russian,  were  issued  in  German  or  French.  But,  nat¬ 
urally,  this  condition,  when  the  national  feeling  first 
grew  strong,  could  not  long  continue. 

In  1741,  Elizabeth,  by  the  aid  of  the  party  of  the 
native  nobility,  annulled  the  rule  which  Miinnich, 
Ostermann,  and  some  other  aristocrats  of  German 
birth  in  the  regency  of  Anna  Leopoldovna,  had  estab¬ 
lished  for  the  minority  of  Ivan  VI.  Elizabeth  had  ban¬ 
ished  Miinnich  and  Ostermann,  “  bravery  and  Avisdom,” 
from  her  empire,  and  Avas  iaoav  everyAvhere  greeted  as 
the  person  who  Avas  to  bring  about  an  age  of  reform  in 
Russia,  only  on  account  of  the  agitation  in  the  direction 
opposite  to  that  which  Avas  due  to  her  great  father. 
She  had  inherited  Peter’s  sensuous  instincts,  but  not 
his  genius.  In  the  mean  time,  simply  that  she  dreamed 
about  again  making  Moscow  the  capital  of  the  empire, 
that  she  had  only  native-born  Russians  about  her  and 
continually  took  the  part  of  protectress  of  the  orthodox 


214 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


clergy,  who  had  long  been  repressed,  was  enough  to  make 
her  generally  regarded  as  the  liberator  of  the  people 
from  the  oppression  of  Western  Europe.  She  was  espe¬ 
cially  so  regarded  by  Lomonosof,  whose  lyrical  poems 
have  hardly  any  other  subject  than  his  sovereign  ;  and 
she  was  celebrated  as  “the  Astræa  who  had  brought  back 
a  golden  age,”  “  the  Moses  who  had  brought  Russia  out 
of  the  darkness  of  Egyptian  thraldom,”  etc.  Under 
her  guidance,  Russia  was  to  show  that,  without  foreign 
teachers,  it  was  in  a  situation  to  bring  forward  “pro¬ 
found  Platos  and  intellectually  endowed  Newtons”  —  a 
manner  of  speech  which  sounds  strangely  in  the  mouth 
of  Lomonosof,  who  had  himself  been  so  thoroughly 
grounded  in  the  schools  of  foreign  lands,  and  who, 
without  the  instruction  in  Marburg  and  Friburg,  never 
would  have  attained  the  level  of  the  European  culture  of 
his  day. 

His  general  enthusiasm  for  science  was  beyond  all 
doubt,  but  in  the  domain  of  history  and  language  the 
rabid  national  feeling  handicapped  him  as  to  the  results 
within  reach.  In  his  contests  with  Muller  and  Schlozer 
he  maintains,  for  example,  that  they  derived  the  Rus¬ 
sian  word  kniaz  (prince)  from  the  German  word  knecht 
to  dishonor  the  Russian  people  and  stamp  them  as  a 
nation  of  thralls.  ( Kniaz  seems  to  be  cognate  not  only 
to  the  word  knecht,  but  also  to  the  English  word  knight, 
and  other  appellations  of  rank  of  the  highest  repute. 
Nevertheless,  the  comparison,  by  Anatole  Leroy  Beau¬ 
lieu,  of  kniaz  with  king  [La  Bassie,  i.  214]  is  certainly 
misleading-)  An  address  of  Muller,  which  was  to  be 
delivered  on  the  name-day  of  the  Tsaritsa,  “  About  the 
Scandinavian  Origin  of  the  Russian  Race  and  Name,” 
struck  Lomonosof  as  insulting  to  the  honor  and  prestige 
of  the  Russian  people.  He  was  so  reckless  in  his  pas- 


LOMONåsOF’S  POEMS. 


215 


sion  that  one  day  he  burst  into  the  audience-room  of  the 
German  professor,  and  began  to  scold  and  abuse  him. 
When  he  was  summoned  before  the  consistory  in  regard 
to  it,  he  fell  upon  its  associates  with  such  abusive  terms 
that  they  refused  to  place  them  upon  the  record.  He 
was  condemned  to  be  punished  with  the  knout  for  this, 
but,  “  out  of  consideration  for  his  services  as  a  scholar, 
and  his  superior  intellectual  qualities,”  the  sentence  was 
commuted  to  a  reduction  of  his  salary. 

At  this  time  it  became  established  as  an  article  of 
faith  that  the  intention  of  Peter  the  Great  ha,d  been  to 
drive  foreign  culture  out  of  the  land  as  soon  as  it  had 
done  its  work;  and  as  they  now  contended  that  its 
mission  was  already  accomplished,  they  succeeded  in 
being  able  to  honor  Peter  also  among  the  great  national 
rulers.  Lomondsof,  therefore,  compares  him  in  his 
speeches  with  God  himself.  To  the  speaker’s  servility 
to  Elizabeth,  one  of  whose  favorites  he  was,  there  is 
naturally  even  less  limit. 

Lomonosof’s  lyrical  poems  were  at  first  didactic,  like 
the  antiquated,  naive  “  About  the  Use  of  Glass,”  which, 
on  account  of  the  insight  of  the  author  into  the  natural 
sciences,  stands  a  little  above  the  didactic  poems  of  this 
kind  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  rather  reminds  us 
of  the  cognate  poems  of  Hans  Christian  Oersted.  In 
the  next  place  he  wrote  religious  poems,  observations  on 
the  greatness  of  God  and  on  similar  themes,  in  the  same 
style  as  Johannes  Ewald  among  us,  and  finally  hymns 
in  laudation  of  Elizabeth  and  her  husband,  which  remind 
us  in  the  highest  degree  of  the  flights  in  the  first  ode 
of  Victor  Hugo  in  Odes  et  Ballades J 

1  About  Lomono'sof,  see  Wolfsohn,  above  cited,  305-340,  with  ex¬ 
cellent  metrical  translations;  Reinholdt,  above  cited,  304  and  follow¬ 
ing,  with  translations  by  Bellinghausen ;  and  the  anonymous  work, 
Ai/s  der  Petersburger  Gesellscha/t,  Ncue  Folge  :  Wassily  Ostrov  und 
die  Akadernie  der  Wissenschaften,  pp.  104-245. 


216 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  strongest  impression  which  the  foreigner  receives 
of  this  great  figure,  planted  at  the  entrance  to  Russian 
literature,  is  its  typical  Russian  stamp.  We  notice, 
in  the  next  place,  its  quality  of  appropriating  the 
results  of  a  foreign  civilization,  with  such  remarka¬ 
ble  rapidity  and  in  so  many  different  directions,  and 
how  the  imitative  tendency  has  taken  root  and  become 
productive.  We  remark  the  universality  which  reminds 
us  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  which,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
latter,  takes  its  starting-point  in  mechanics  and  technics. 
Lomonosof  is  a  real  muzhik,  the  ingenious  serf  who, 
in  the  space  of  one  generation,  goes  through  the  devel¬ 
opment  which  we  trace  hack  to  the  natural  gifts  of  the 
Russian  peasant  in  the  main,  but  which  his  class  of 
society  as  a  whole  will  take  a  thousand  years  to  travel 
through.  Lomonosof  is  a  genuine  Slav  by  nature, 
flighty  and  gentle.  Several  years  in  succession  he  van¬ 
ishes  from  his  wife’s  range  of  vision  without  sending 
a  word  to  her  ;  but  when  she  reminds  him  of  her  exist¬ 
ence  and  of  his  child,  he  bursts  into  tears,  and  exclaims 
to  the  man  who  brings  him  the  letter,  “  My  God  !  how 
could  I  have  left  her !  Circumstances  have  prevented 
me  from  calling  her  to  me.  Now  I  will  send  her  a  hun¬ 
dred  rubles  for  the  journey.”  Like  a  genuine  Slav,  he 
is  above  everything  else,  at  the  same  time,  a  rationalist 
and  mystic.  On  his  journey  back  to  Russia  he  had  seen 
in  a  dream  his  father’s  corpse  cast  up  by  the  waves 
on  an  uninhabited  island  in  the  Arctic  Ocean.  The 
strong  mathematician  could  not  escape  from  this  vision. 
He  had  scarcely  reached  home  before  he  inquired  of  peo¬ 
ple  from  Archangel  about  his  father’s  fate,  and  learned 
that  now  for  four  months  after  he  had  gone  out  a-fishing 
on  the  Arctic  Ocean,  nothing  had  been  heard  from  him. 
He  then  sent  his  brother  with  a  letter  to  the  fishermen 


DERZIIA  VIN. 


217 


of  the  region,  and  directed  them  to  seek  for  his  father’s 
body  on  the  island  seen  in  his  dreams,  whose  situation 
he  exactly  described ;  and,  since  the  body  was  found, 
was  for  the  rest  of  his  life  obstinately  convinced  that 
it  was  found  exactly  on  the  spot  shown  to  him  in  his 
dream. 

Finally  Lomonosof  is  Russian  in  his  rambling  propen¬ 
sity,  and  his  thirst  for  foreign  knowledge ;  very  Russian 
in  his  adoration  of  the  Tsaritsa;  Russian  in  his  coarse¬ 
ness  and  violence  towards  his  foreign  colleagues ;  but 
Russian  especially  in  the  way  in  which,  a  pupil  of  the 
Germans,  he  goes  to  the  end  of  his  rope  in  his  hatred 
of  and  opposition  to  the  intellectual  sway  of  the 
foreigner. 


From  Lomonosof  it  is  a  direct  descent  through  Der¬ 
zhavin  and  Zhukovski  down  to  Pushkin  and  Lermontof, 
the  literary  geniuses  of  this  century. 

Derzhavin  (1743-1816)  represents  in  lyrics  the  period 
of  Catherine  II.,  as  Lomonosof  does  that  of  Elizabeth. 
He  was  born  at  Kazan,  learned  German  early,  read 
Gellert  and  Hagedorn,  Herder  and  Klopstock,  was  com¬ 
pelled  to  pass  twelve  hard  years  from  1762  as  a  soldier  of 
the  guard.  The  day  when  Catherine  ascended  the  throne, 
he  stood  as  a  soldier  of  nineteen  on  guard  at  the  Winter 
Palace.  No  one  could  then  have  imagined  that  in  the 
future  his  name  would  be  mentioned  in  connection  with 
hers. 

In  1773  he  took  part  in  the  campaign  against  Puga- 
tchef  on  the  Volga,  which  he  afterwards  tried  to  describe 
in  verse.  In  1777  he  published  his  first  collection  of 
poems,  which  contained  among  others  a  translation  of  a 
number  of  the  poems  of  Frederick  the  Great.  He  ob¬ 
tained  a  civil  appointment  by  his  well-known  “  Ode  to 


218 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Feliza,  Tsaritsa  of  the  Kirgiz-Cossacks  ”  (viz.,  Catherine). 
He  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Tsaritsa,  received  a 
snuff-box  and  some  ducats  for  his  poem,  and  then  one 
important  office  after  the  other,  since  on  account  of  his 
passionate,  fiery  temperament,  which  was  strangely  united 
with  the  most  methodical  pedantry,  he  was  generally 
very  soon  obliged  to  leave  his  posts.  His  ode  on  the  occa¬ 
sion  of  the  taking  of  Izmail  by  storm  inspired  Catherine 
anew  just  when  his  affairs  were  at  a  low  ebb.  In  1791  he 
was  appointed  private  secretary  to  the  Tsaritsa,  but  tired 
her  excessively  in  this  capacity.  Under  Paul  he  became 
the  leading  officer  in  the  home  department  of  the  empire, 
and  under  Alexander  minister  of  justice,  without  being 
of  any  use  in  either  of  these  offices.  He  was  obliged 
to  leave  the  former  on  account  of  “  licentious  language  ;  ” 
in  the  latter  he  showed  himself  to  be  ultra-reactionary, 
and,  among  other  things,  set  himself  with  might  and 
main  against  the  plan,  which  had  even  then  been  pro¬ 
posed,  of  emancipating  the  serfs.  Derzhavin  had  some 
other  traits  as  an  official ;  he  was  disagreeable  and 
pedantic,  and  at  the  same  time  possessed  a  vigorous 
conscience,  a  combination  which  reminds  a  Dane  of 
Schack  Staffeldt. 

He  passed  that  part  of  his  life  which  fell  to  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  almost  wholly  as  a  private  man,  sur¬ 
rounded  by  the  admiration  and  piety  of  the  rising 
literary  generation.  His  figure  inspired  veneration,  his 
eye  was  full  of  fire,  and  the  expression  of  his  counte¬ 
nance  was  mild.  When,  a  year  before  his  death,  he  was 
present  at  the  final  examination  of  a  grammar  school  in 
Tsarskoye-Sielo,  a  pupil  recited  a  poem  composed  by 
himself.  This  pupil  was  Alexander  Pushkin,  and  his 
verses  made  such  an  impression  on  the  old  poet,  that, 
after  having  heard  them,  he  exclaimed ;  “  My  time  is 


DERZIIA  VIN  ’  S  ODES. 


219 


past  — you  will  now  have  a  second  Derzhavin.”  Pushkin, 
in  his  Yevgeni  Onyégin  (viii.  2),  recalls,  with  emotion, 
these  encouraging  words  which  his  predecessor  in  the 
poetic  art  gave  him  by  the  way. 

Derzhavin  began  as  the  imitator  of  Lomondsof’s  bom¬ 
bastic  style  with  the  broad,  cold  pathos.  His  ode 
“  God,”  admired  and  celebrated  in  its  time,  corresponds 
to  the  import  of  the  religious  odes  of  Baggesen  in  the 
Danish  literature.  It  must  be  owing  to  the  subject  that 
the  poem  has  been  translated  into  a  great  many  different 
tongues,  and  last  of  all  into  the  Japanese.  It  contains 
everything  which  such  a  hymn  must  contain  of  gratitude 
and  humility,  on  the  part  of  the  very  small  towards  the 
eternal  greatness,  but  no  genuine  emotion  and  not  an 
idea.  The  long-winded  poem  which  won  Catherine’s 
favor  is  far  better.  It  surprises  us  agreeably  on  coming 
from  the  Klopstock  bombast  of  earlier  days.  It  keeps 
to  the  earth,  is  jocular  and  sportive,  adopts  a  tone  like 
that  which  Horace  assumed  towards  Mæcenas,  in  the 
broad  description  of  the  worldly-minded  laziness  of  the 
poet  in  comparison  with  the  life  full  of  responsibility 
of  the  regent.  The  poem  “The  Great”  has  no  longer 
any  poetic,  but  a  historic  and  psychological  interest, 
because,  without  mentioning  any  names,  it  contains  a 
disparaging  description  of  Potemkin  (pronounced  Patyom- 
kin)  in  contrast  to  other  unappreciated  but  really  great 
Russians.  Our  respect  for  the  poet  is,  however,  some¬ 
what  diminished,  from  the  fact  that  he  himself  was  in¬ 
debted  to  Potemkin’s  energetic  protection  for  his  escape 
in  a  lawsuit  brought  against  him  by  some  bitter  enemies, 
so  that  gratitude  ought  to  have  restrained  him  from  giv¬ 
ing  utterance  to  his  ill  humor.  lie  also,  at  a  later  period, 
commemorated  Potemkin’s  solitary  death  in  the  middle 
of  the  steppes  in  his  poem  “  The  Waterfall.” 


220 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Constantly  changing  influences  from  Western  and 
Southern  Europe,  from  the  contemporary  age  and  from 
the  past,  had  their  effect  upon  this  poetry,  which  just 
escaped  mediocrity.  The  influence  of  Horace  and  the 
Anacreontics,  perhaps  through  the  influence  of  the 
Gottingen  lyric,  follows  that  of  Klopstock.  When 
the  ballad  style  prevails,  Derzhavin  begins  to  write 
ballads  and  to  imitate,  at  second-hand  (after  Zhukovski), 
Burger’s  “  Leonore.”  At  the  close  of  his  poetic  career 
he  was  influenced  by  Ossian,  Avho  was  then  making  an 
impression  everywhere. 

The  influence  which  Ludwig  Holberg  exerted  even 
here  in  distant  Russia  at  this  period  is  specially  inter¬ 
esting  to  a  Dane.  The  author  who  laid  the  foundation 
of  Russian  comedy,  Denis  von  Wizin  (1742-1792),  re¬ 
ceived  the  impulse  to  his  dramatic  attempts  from  Hol¬ 
berg.  French  and  German  companies  had  found  an 
audience  in  Russia  before  the  Russian  theatre  was  estab¬ 
lished,  and  it  was  a  German  manager,  the  distinguished 
actor  Ackerman,  who,  so  to  speak,  introduced  the  entire 
comedy  of  Holberg  into  Russia.  When  a  permanent 
Russian  stage  was  opened  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow 
(1756-57),  a  long  list  of  plays  of  the  favorite  Danish 
author,  translated  from  the  German  into  Russian,  was 
produced  upon  it.  “  Don  Ranudo  ”  and  “  Henry  and 
Pernilla  ”  gave  the  most  satisfaction,  yet  they  could  not 
compete  in  power  of  attraction  with  the  lyrical  tragedy 
of  Metastasio,  “  Artaxerxes,”  translated  by  Holberg, 
which  was  regarded  as  an  original  production  of  Holberg 
and  always  filled  the  house  to  the  last  place. 

Von  Wizin  saw  “Henry  and  Pernilla”  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  when  he  was  a  student,  and  felt,  to  use  his  own 
expression,  “  an  indescribable  fascination  ”  in  this 
comedy.  His  first  celebrated  comedy,  “  The  Brigadier- 


VON  wfziN’S  BRIGADIER-GENERAL.  221 


General,”  is  greatly  influenced  by  Holberg,  especially 
by  “Jean  de  France.”  The  General’s  son  Ivan  (that  is, 
Jean),  who  has  been  educated  in  a  boarding-house  of  a 
French  coachman,  has  returned  from  his  journey  to 
Paris  with  the  “  Francomania.”  How  great  the  resem¬ 
blance  is  between  this  figure  and  the  Hans  Frandsen  of 
Holberg,  a  brief  extract  will  make  plain. 

The  General :  “  Listen,  Ivan,  I  have  seldom  blushed 
since  I  got  out  of  leading-strings  ;  but  to-day,  in  spite  of 
my  gray  hair,  I  was  so  ashamed  of  you  that  my  cheeks 
burned.” 

Ivan  :  “Mon  clier  pere  !  Can  it  be  agreeable  to  me  to 
be  told  that  I  must  marry  a  Russian  girl  ?  ” 

The  General :  “  Are  you  a  Frenchman,  then  ?  I 
thought  you  were  bom  in  Russia.” 

Ivdn :  “  My  body  was  born  in  Russia ;  that  is  true. 
But  my  spirit  belongs  to  the  French  crown.” 

The  General:  “Then  you  owe  Russia  more  than 
France,  for  there  is  more  coherence  in  your  body  than 
there  is  in  your  spirit.” 

Ivan  :  “  See  here,  papa,  now  you  are  beginning  to  say 
civil  things  to  me,  since  you  understand  that  you  cannot 
make  any  progress  by  severity.” 

The  General :  “You  are  a  regular  fool !  I  have  called 
you  a  blockhead,  and  you  think  that  I  am  paying  you 
compliments.  What  an  ass  !  ” 

Ivan  :  “Ass  !  II  ne  me  flatte  pas.  —  I  repeat  to  you, 
papa,  je  vous  le  répete,  that  my  ears  are  not  accustomed 
to  such  expressions.” 

It  is  no  slight  honor  for  Denmark  that  the  man  who 
laid  the  foundation  of  our  national  literature  and 
created  the  Danish  stage  has  also  been  instrumental 
in  the  foundation  of  the  Russian  theatre.  He  died 
without  seeing  anything  of  this ;  lie  certainly  never 


222 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


suspected,  liow  large  a  portion  of  the  world  his  genius 
would  affect ;  but  it  is  a  curious  idea  that  even  in  the 
last  years  of  Holberg’s  life,  when  his  countrymen  were 
turning  their  backs  upon  him,  the  inhabitants  of  St. 
Petersburg  and  Moscow  were  jubilant  over  his  comedies, 
and  that  only  ten  years  after  his  death  his  influence 
could  be  traced  as  predominant  in  the  first  Russian  com¬ 
edies  that  gave  any  pleasure  to  their  hearers.1 

Von  Wi'zin,  “the  Russian  Mollere,”  was  also  influenced 
by  several  other  foreign  authors  besides  Holberg.  But, 
upon  the  whole,  down  to  the  present  time,  it  has  been  a 
law  of  Russian  literature  aud  intellectual  life  that  no 
progress  and  no  new  form  of  development  has  been 
attained  except  on  a  foundation  of  foreign  influence  in 
its  most  emphatic  and  unequivocal  form. 

This  is  again  to  be  seen  in  the  author  who  shows  the 
next  advance,  and  who,  in  Russia,  is  regarded  as  the 
Columbus  of  romanticism ;  namely,  Vasily  Zhukovski 
(1783-1852).  A  man  of  subtile  talent ;  a  character  ten¬ 
der  as  a  woman,  but  pure,  with  A.  W.  Schlegel’s  gifts  as 
a  translator,  but  without  Sclilegel’s  wealth  of  ideas,  — 
an  honest  visionary  and  upright  lover  of  the  good,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  true,  as  three  venerable,  conservative 
powers,  well  fitted  to  develop  as  court  poet  under  the 
Tsar  Nicholas,  and  to  end,  as  Slavic  men  of  talent  like 
to  end,  in  mystic  pietism.  He  is  the  author  of  the  Rus¬ 
sian  national  song,  the  hymn  to  the  Tsar. 

Zhukovski  was  the  illegitimate  son  of  an  elderly  Russian 
country  nobleman  by  the  name  of  Bunin  and  a  young  Turk¬ 
ish  woman  whom  Bunin  had  brought  home  to  his  residence 
as  booty  after  the  conquest  of  Bender.  The  boy  grew 

1  See  Alexis  Wesselofsky :  Deutsche  Einfliisse  avf  das  alte  Rvs- 
sische  Theater,  von  1672-1758,  p.  107.  Reinholdt,  cited  above,  p.  358 
and  following. 


ZHUKOV  SKI. 


223 


up  with  Bunin’s  legitimate  daughters,  who  were  much 
older;  early  developed,  and  spoiled  in  a  purely  feminine 
atmosphere.  While  yet  young,  he  read  Diderot,  Voltaire, 
Young,  Burger,  Herder,  Wieland,  and  Schiller.  At  the 
age  of  nineteen,  he  translated  Schiller’s  “William  Tell;” 
some  years  later,  “  Don  Quixote  ;  ”  also  wrote  original 
epic  poems,  ballads,  and  tales,  yet  without  close  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  Russian  popular  spirit,  because,  in  almost 
every  one  of  his  poems,  yor  can  point  out  the  foreign 
models. 

In  1812  he  participated  with  distinction,  as  an  officer, 
in  the  campaign  against  the  army  of  Napoleon,  and 
became  celebrated  by  the  poem,-  “  The  Singer  in  the 
Russian  Camp,”  and  by  a  metrical  homage  addressed 
to  the  Tsar  Alexander  from  Paris,  which  for  the  first 
time  brought  him  in  contact  with  the  ladies  of  the  impe¬ 
rial  family.  He  suffered  the  heartache  of  youth  when 
some  one,  on  grounds  of  orthodoxy,  refused  to  give  him 
his  niece  in  marriage.  In  order  to  enjoy  the  young  girl’s 
society,  he  accompanied  the  family  to  Dorpat,  passed  an 
instructive  year  in  the  little  university  town,  and  then, 
in  1816,  in  St.  Petersburg,  joined  the  literary  society 
“Artasamas,”  composed  of  persons  similarly  educated, 
of  which  Pushkin,  Nicholas  Turgenief,  and  the  later 
re-actionists,  Minister  Bludof  and  Uvarof,  were  mem¬ 
bers;  a  society  which,  as  the  league  of  the  Phosphorists 
in  Sweden  of  that  time,  started  the  opposition  of  the 
new  century  against  the  French  classicism. 

The  romanticism  which  the  society  advocated  as  an 
offset  did  not  and  could  not  have  that  relation  to  the 
past,  especially  to  the  Middle  Ages,  possessed  by  the 
German  romanticism,  of  which  it  was  a  product.  For 
the  Russian  antiquity  and  Middle  Ages  were,  at  that 
time,  still  a  sealed  book.  They  only  brought  forward 


224 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  11  PS  SI  A. 


a  new  and,  in  its  essence,  a  tolerably  inexact  aesthetic 
doctrine  :  fantasy  should  have  freer  flight  than  before  ; 
deeper  psychological  insight  is  of  more  account  than 
local  color.  Still,  like  all  other  nationalities  during  the 
reign  of  Napoleon  and  after  his  fall,  the  Russian  nation 
turned  its  attention  to  its  national  peculiarity,  and  the 
problem  of  describing  the  nature  of  the  Russian  land  and 
people,  and  of  representing  the  domestic  world  in  poetry, 
was  now  presented  for  the  first  time,  and  for  the  first 
time  solved  by  Pushkin  in  his  way.  Here,  as  everywhere 
else,  Shakespeare  made  his  influence  felt  on  the  nascent 
romanticism,  and  here,  as  in  Poland,  Byron  soon  became 
the  poet  of  the  romancing  youth. 

The  little  circle  of  romanticists  was  broken  as  soon 
as  the  political  question  entered  it.  On  account  of  his 
liberal  tendencies,  Pushkin  was  sent  for  a  six  years’ 
exile  to  Southern  Russia.  Bludof  became  a  legation 
attache.  Zhukovski,  after  1817,  became  a  courtier,  be¬ 
cause  he  was  commissioned  to  supervise  the  instruction 
in  the  Russian  language  and  literature  of  Alexandra, 
the  German-born  wife  of  the  Prince  Imperial  Nicholas. 
Very  soon  also  the  Tsaritsa  Elizabeth,  the  somewhat 
neglected,  sentimental,  and  fragile  consort  of  the  Tsar 
Alexander,  became  interested  in  the  gentle,  bland  poet, 
and  dipped  alternately  into  his  elegies  and  into  Tiedge’s 
“  Urania.”  From  this  time  Zhukovski  assumed  a  posi¬ 
tion  which  for  Hans  Christian  Andersen  would  have 
been  the  realization  of  the  ideal  of  happiness.  He  read 
aloud  with  never-failing  applause  his  ballads  and  odes, 
his  poems  on  grand  birthdays  and  on  the  occasion  of 
the  birth  of  little  princes  and  princesses  of  the  royal 
family,  in  a  circle  of  ladies  of  the  family  of  the  Tsar 
and  of  the  court,  whose  real  life  he  neither  understood 
nor  wished  to  understand,  but  who  to  him  were  super- 


ZHUKOVSKI  ’  S  TRANSLA  TIONS. 


225 


natural  beings,  —  “  angels,”  “  guiding  stars,”  as  he  called 
them  in  his  festal  poems. 

As  he  had  already  translated  a  number  of  notable 
European  poems,  among  them  Gray’s  “Elegy  in  a  Coun¬ 
try  Churchyard,”  existing  in  all  languages,  and  Burger’s 
“  Leonore  ”  (Liudmila),  he  now  displayed  to  this  circle 
of  hearers  an  incredible  productiveness  as  a  translator : 
a  large  number  of  the  poems  of  Goethe  and  Schiller, 
whole  plays  of  the  latter,  like  Die  Jungfrau  von  Orleans, 
Byron’s  “Prisoner  of  Chillon,”  Moore’s  “Laila  Rookh,” 
the  Indian  poem,  “  Nal  and  Damasjanti,”  Fouqué’s 
“Undine,”  and  Hebei’s  Allemanic  poems,  Homer’s 
“  Odyssey,”  and  Ruckert’s  “  Rustem  and  Sohrab,”  —  all 
these  different  kinds  of  poetry  with  his  subtile  talent 
he  transmuted  into  flowing  Russian  verse. 

In  1821,  on  a  journey  to  Germany,  he  contracted  a 
friendship  with  Justinus  Kerner,  whom  he  resembled 
in  superstitious  mysticism,  and  made  a  visit  to  Goethe, 
but  without  winning  any  favor  from  the  old  man.  He 
was  more  agreeable  to  “the  romanticist  on  the  throne,” 
Frederick  William  IV.,  who  introduced  him  to  Tieck, 
and  also  to  other  leaders  of  the  German  romanticism. 
Some  years  after  his  return  to  Russia,  a  re-action  towards 
all  the  youthful  desires  of  Alexander  I.  for  an  enlight¬ 
ened  despotism  in  the  aid  of  progress  ascended  the 
throne  in  the  person  of  Nicholas.  Soon  the  tender 
Zhukovski,  with  painful  astonishment,  saw  the  best  of 
the  friends  of  his  youth  banished;  others,  less  promi¬ 
nent,  but  still  strong  characters,  leave  the  vicinity  of 
the  court,  and  isolate  themselves  in  obscure  silence  on 
their  estates.  Nevertheless,  when  at  this  time  a  genius 
of  Pushkin’s  rank  turned  around  and  extolled  the  vic¬ 
tories  of  Nicholas  over  unhappy  Poland,  it  will  not 
astonish  any  one  that  Zhukovski  issued  from  this  crisis 


226 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


with  firm  faith  that  whatever  the  Tsar  regarded  as  right 
is  right. 

After  Pushkin’s  early  death  (1837),  Zliukovski  occu¬ 
pied  the  position  of  Russia’s  leading  poet,  distinguished 
at  the  imperial  court  in  every  manner,  even  appointed 
as  the  civil  tutor  of  the  Prince  Imperial  Alexander 
(afterwards  Alexander  II.).  If  he  is  now  remembered 
with  gratitude  in  Russia,  it  is,  significantly  enough, 
more  on  account  of  the  humane  influence  he  exerted  on 
the  young  prince,  who  was  admirably  endowed  by  nature, 
than  on  account  of  his  literary  services.  He  dared  to 
put  in  a  word  for  many  a  political  offender,  whom  a  man 
who  was  not  in  so  good  standing  or  less  courageous  would 
never  have  dared  to  name,  and  he  thereby  accomplished 
a  great  deal  of  good.  We  see  from  Alexander  Herzen’s 
“  Reminiscences,”  that  he  procured  a  considerable  diminu¬ 
tion  of  the  burdens  of  exile  for  this  great  man,  who  as 
a  youth  was  languishing  in  Viatka.1  When  Zhukovski, 
after  1840,  took  up  his  residence  in  Germany,  where  at 
the  age  of  fifty-seven  he  married  a  girl  of  nineteen,  who 
worshipped  his  talent,  he  had  the  affliction  of  finding 
out  how  the  rule  of  his  dear  native  country  was  hated 
and  despised  by  all  thinking  men  in  the  foreign  land. 
The  intellectual  agitations  of  young  Germany,  and  still 
more  the  revolution  of  1848,  shook  him  fearfully,  and 
gave  him  the  most  melancholy  pietism  in  all  its  force. 
He  lived  in  Frankfort  for  some  time  in  company  with 
Gogol,  in  whom  the  re-action  had  already  been  accom¬ 
plished  which  converted  him  from  the  wittiest  and  most 
caustic  mocker  of  the  Russian  situation  to  a  poor,  sick 
admirer  of  absolute  power  and  a  mystic  obscurantist, 
who  lay  for  whole  days  prostrate  before  shrines.  The 

1  Le  Munde  Russe  et  la  Revolution.  Mémoires  de  A.  Hertzen,  ii. 

154. 


MYSTICISM  TIIE  END. 


227 


two  men  constantly  filled  each  other  more  and  more  with 
universal  hatred  of  liberty  and  the  personal  feeling  of 
their  boundless  sinfulness.  They  both  ended  as  insane 
mystics.1 

Zhukovski’s  life  spans  the  whole  of  that  of  the  epoch- 
making  Russian  national  poet.  He  prepares  the  way  for 
Pushkin,  becomes  his  friend,  and  ascends  his  vacant 
throne  without  being  able  to  cause  his  predecessor  to 
be  forgotten.  Zhukovski  was  sixteen  years  older  than 
Pushkin,  whom  he  survives  for  fifteen  years.  His  im¬ 
portance  vanishes  by  the  side  of  the  younger  man,  who 
began  life  as  his  and  Derzhavin’s  imitator. 

1  Aus  der  Petersburger  Gcsellschaft.  Neue  Folge,  p.  106  and  follow¬ 
ing:  Litteratur  und  Prette  unter  dem  Kaiser  Nikolaus. 


III. 


With  Alexander  Sergeyevitch  Pushkin,  Russian  poe- 
trjr  becomes  an  independent  power,  just  as  it  is  with 
Goethe,  Oelenschlåger,  or  Victor  Hugo.  It  no  longer  does 
duty  for  inculcating  noble  emotions  or  useful  instruc¬ 
tion  ;  it  is  —  in  principle,  at  least — the  handmaid  neither 
of  morals  nor  of  patriotism.  It  stands  erect,  wild,  and 
free. 

Like  the  other  leading  Slavic  poets  of  this  period, 
Pushkin  was  greatly  influenced  by  Byron,  and  had  to  go 
through  this  experience  in  order  to  become  himself.  He 
is  very  peculiar  from  the  beginning  from  his  violent  tem¬ 
perament.  He  descends,  on  his  mother’s  side,  from  the 
negro  Hannibal,  whom  Peter  the  Great  bought  and  edu¬ 
cated  in  France  as  a  civil  engineer,  and  who  died  with 
the  rank  of  general,  possessing  a  good  landed  estate. 
The  face  of  the  author  as  well  as  his  poetry  plainly 
betrays  the  African  blood  in  his  veins.  His  father  was 
a  man  of  the  world,  educated  in  France,  who  had  never 
spoken  any  other  language  than  French,  and  who,  in  the 
fashion  of  the  aristocracy,  also  caused  his  son  to  learn 
that  language.  Pushkin  was  indebted  to  his  nurse  alone, 
a  good  Russian  peasant  woman,  for  his  early  and  so  fruit¬ 
ful  acquaintance  with  popular  ballads,  bilim,  and  fairy 
tales  of  Russia. 

Precocious,  dissolute  at  an  early  age,  and  then  and  for 
a  long  time  a  “  dandy,”  he  belongs  to  the  not  small  num¬ 
ber  of  artistic  geniuses  from  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 

228 


PUSHKIN'S  YOUTH. 


229 


tury,  whom  an  inner  power,  which  no  depravity  destroys, 
preserved  sound  and  capable  of  production  in  circum¬ 
stances  which  would  undermine  and  shatter  weaker 
minds.  What  harm  he  suffered  in  his  soul  did  not 
come  from  the  wildness  and  irregularity  in  his  life,  but 
from  the  pressure  of  the  political  situation  when  his 
character  was  not  developed,  and  even  from  the  personal 
attempts  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  to  win  him,  which  the 
young  aristocrat  could  not  resist. 

When  he  was  only  ten  years  old,  Pushkin  had  devoured 
las  father’s  French  library,  including  Voltaire,  Bousseau, 
and  the  Encyclopedists.  From  his  twelfth  to  his  eigh¬ 
teenth  year,  he  went  to  the  imperial  school  in  Tsarskoye- 
Sielo,  where  the  instruction  and  spirit  were  French  —  even 
the  French  language  was  taught  to  the  pupils  by  Marat’s 
own  brother  —  where  the  instruction  was  very  bad,  and 
where  the  older  students  saw  their  ideals  in  the  lieuten¬ 
ants  of  the  Guard  in  the  garrison,  after  whose  example 
they  kept  mistresses,  gambled,  and  played  mad  pranks. 
The  young  Pushkin  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  worst  mad¬ 
caps  of  the  school,  but  at  the  same  time  enjoyed  a  certain 
reputation  for  erotic  and  epigrammatic  verses.  In  1817 
he  got  a  position  in  the  office  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  which  he  neglected,  and  plunged  headlong  into 
the  whirlpool  of  St.  Petersburg  social  life,  apparently 
desiring  no  other  honor  than  that  of  being  a  fully  devel¬ 
oped  man  of  the  world  and  aristocratic  lion.  How  much 
importance,  almost  to  his  last  days,  he  attached  to  the  re¬ 
finements  of  foppery  is  best  seen  in  the  description  which 
he  has  given  of  himself  under  the  name  of  Tcharsky, 
in  his  posthumous  novel,  “The  Egyptian  Nights.”  Like 
Byron,  he  did  not  wish  in  any  manner  to  be  regarded  as 
a  poet  “  by  trade,”  very  reluctantly  spoke  of  literature, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  with  great  pleasure  of  horses, 


230 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


cards,  and  dinners,  “  although  he  could  not  tell  a  moun¬ 
tain  horse  from  the  Arabian,  never  remembered  what 
was  trumps,  and,  at  heart,  preferred  fried  potatoes  to  all 
the  dishes  of  the  French  cook”  (“Egyptian  Nights”). 

In  spite  of  all  his  dissipations,  in  1820  he  published 
his  first  poem,  “Ruslan  and  Liudmila,”  which  made 
an  unusual  sensation,  although  this  fairy  tale  in  verse, 
founded  on  a  Russian  legend,  reminds  one  of  Ariosto,  of 
Wieland,  and  of  Zhukovski,  and  has  no  other  originality 
than  that  which  depends  on  great  skill  in  story-telling 
and  careful  composition.  The  poem  passed  for  pure 
romance ;  it  was  interesting  from  a  certain  archness 
in  its  tone  and  a  strong  sensuousness  in  its  color,  but 
was  otherwise  without  any  psychological  interest. 

At  this  time,  Pushkin  fell  into  disgrace  for  the  first 
time.  As  a  young  man,  he  had  been  a  political  revolu¬ 
tionary  poet.  An  ode  written  by  him,  “To  the  Dagger,” 
was  sung  in  all  the  garrision  towns  of  Russia,  but  prob¬ 
ably  without  knowledge  of  the  author’s  name.  He  de¬ 
tested  the  despotism  which  they  were  compelled  to 
endure  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Alexander  I.,  hated 
the  idiotic  censorship,  which  then  weighed  heavily  upon 
poetry,  and  the  rough  rule  of  the  police,  to  whose  arbi¬ 
trariness  the  young  men  beheld  their  welfare  intrusted ; 
and,  witty  as  he  was  and  with  cutting  sarcasm,  he  pierced 
the  ruling  persons  and  prevailing  conditions  with  epi¬ 
grams  which  circulated  through  the  land.  In  1820 
the  Governor-General  of  St.  Petersburg  complained  of 
him  to  the  Tsar  for  an  “  Ode  to  Freedom ;  ”  but  Alexan¬ 
der  read  it  without  indignation,  and  only  asked  the 
young  poet  to  let  all  his  other  manuscripts  be  laid 
before  him.  Unfortunately,  among  them  there  was  a 
lampoon  of  the  Tsar’s  favorite,  Arakcheyef ;  and,  indig¬ 
nant  at  this  scornful  treatment  of  a  man  whom  he  had 


PUSHKIN'S  EXILE  AND  PARDON. 


231 


treated  with  distinguished  consideration,  Alexander  exiled 
the  sinner  first  to  Siberia,  and  then,  on  the  intercession 
of  many,  to  Kishenef  in  Southern  Russia,  as  assistant 
secretary  of  the  general-governor  there.  During  his  so¬ 
journ  here,  after  an  illness,  Pushkin  obtained  leave  to 
visit  the  Caucasus  and  the  Crimea.  The  epoch-making 
impression  of  its  natural  scenery  is  plainly  visible  in 
his  poetry.  In  the  Caucasus,  he  became  acquainted  with 
Byron’s  poetry,  and  the  impression  of  it  became  fused  in 
his  youthful  mind  with  the  impressions  of  the  Caucasus, 
and  the  Byronic  impression  was  even  the  more  radical  of 
the  two.  In  Kishenef  and  Odessa,  he  gave  offence  by 
his  wild  life  and  his  Byronic  manners,  and  was  already 
in  bad  odor  with  his  superiors,  when  a  private  letter 
from  him  to  St.  Petersburg  was  intercepted,  which 
described  a  young  Englishman,  a  friend  of  Shelley’s, 
with  whom  he  had  become  acquainted,  and  in  which  he 
defended  Shelley’s  so-called  atheism.  The  result  was  a 
new  exile.  Pushkin  was  directed,  under  the  supervision 
of  the  police,  to  reside  on  his  estate  Mikhailovskoye,  in 
the  department  of  Pskof. 

As  is  well  known,  the  six  years’  exile  from  St.  Peters¬ 
burg  saved  Pushkin’s  life.  He  would,  no  doubt,  have 
taken  part  in  the  revolt  of  December,  1825,  on  the  acces¬ 
sion  of  Nicholas  to  the  throne,  if  he  had  been  on  the 
spot.  After  the  fearful  result  of  the  revolution  and  the 
annihilation  of  his  nearest  friends,  when  he  resolved  to 
petition  the  Tsar  for  the  termination  of  his  exile,  he 
nevertheless  humbled  himself  no  more  than  to  admit,  in 
answer  to  the  direct  question  of  the  Tsar,  that  his  sym¬ 
pathies,  on  the  25th  of  December,  had  been  on  the  side 
of  the  rebels.  Among  the  few  points  of  the  Russian  lit¬ 
erary  history  which  have  become  public  property  is  the 
poet’s  promise  of  future  loyalty  to  the  Tsar,  the  embrace 


232 


IMP llE S SION S  OF  RUSSIA. 


with  which  the  Tsar  responded  to  the  pledge,  and  his 
own  promise  to  Pushkin  that  he  would  protect  him  from 
the  stupidity  and  chicanery  of  the  censorship  by  being 
himself  his  censor  in  the  future.  Pushkin,  who  was  con¬ 
fronted  with  the  choice  between  reconciliation  with  the 
Tsar  and  his  system  or  a  lifelong  persecution  and  exile, 
had  not  the  strength  of  character  that  would  have  made 
compromise  impossible. 

His  position  in  society  as  well  as  in  the  literary  world 
was  soon  assured.  The  Tsar  gave  him  a  pension  of  six 
thousand  rubles  a  year,  with  the  task,  which  bore  lightly 
on  the  poet,  of  writing  the  history  of  Peter  the  Great, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  appointed  him  gentleman  of  the 
imperial  bed-chamber.  This  appointment  was  regarded 
as  very  slight  honor  by  the  poet,  who  thought  the  title 
absurd  and  degrading  for  a  man  of  his  importance  and 
reputation.  He  took  part  anew  with  brio  in  the  “  high 
life  ”  of  St.  Petersburg,  but  was,  in  fact,  secretly  and 
heartily  ashamed  of  the  court  favor  he  enjoyed  while 
the  friends  of  his  youth  were  languishing  in  the  case¬ 
mates  of  fortresses  and  in  Siberian  mines,  or  living  in 
exile  in  foreign  capitals. 

He  stupefied  this  sentiment  by  taking  refuge  in  the 
feeling  of  pride  at  the  extent  of  Russia  and  its  strength 
as  a  military  power,  which  is  not  uncommon  among  emi¬ 
nent  Russians.  The  former  radical  enjoyed  the  presen¬ 
tation  of  the  Russian  power  of  beating  down  resistance  of 
every  kind  which  came  from  the  Poles,  who  had  rebelled 
from  their  longing  for  independence,  or  from  the  nations 
of  the  West  who  sympathized  with  them  in  their  love 
for  freedom.  It  is  thus  that  lxis  “  Ode  to  the  Slanderer 
of  Russia,”  written  in  1831,  must  be  understood. 

However,  he  was  too  unlike  his  worldly-minded  asso¬ 
ciates,  among  whom  he  was  placed,  too  thoroughly  origi- 


IIIS  RANK  AS  A  POET. 


233 


nal,  too  peculiar,  proud,  and  sarcastic,  too  much  admired 
and  appreciated  by  those  who  understood  his  genius,  not 
to  live  environed  by  irritated  envy  and  hate.  It  was 
this  hate  which  gratified  itself  by  defending  the  ad¬ 
vances  of  the  Franco-Dutch  adventurer  Dantes  de  Hech- 
eren  to  his  wife,  and  which  thus  drove  Pushkin  to  an 
early  death.  The  outburst  of  anger  was,  therefore,  jus¬ 
tifiable,  with  which  the  younger  generation  in  Russia, 
through  the  voice  of  Lermontof,  greeted  the  tidings  of 
Pushkin’s  death  in  the  well-known  duel. 

Pushkin  is  the  first  modern  person  in  Russian  poetry ; 
or,  as  it  could  also  be  expressed,  the  first  illustrious  man 
in  Russia  who  had  the  courage  to  express  his  personality 
fully  in  poetry.  In  contrast  to  his  predecessors,  he  at 
once  makes  his  appearance  while  a  youth,  asserting 
himself  without  respect  for  tradition  and  authority  in 
literature,  and  he  has,  even  when  young,  the  stamp  of 
greatness  on  his  forehead,  style  and  power  in  his  aspect 
as  a  poet,  which  compel  his  contemporaries  to  greet  him 
as  a  chief.  There  is  something  manly  about  him,  which 
even  his  opponents  do  not  fail  to  recognize.  He  belongs 
to  the  number  of  those  who  are  vituperated,  assailed, 
envied,  and  hated,  but  whom  no  one  puts  in  the  second 
rank.  The  combination  of  power  and  grace  in  his  lan¬ 
guage  surpassed,  in  a  very  high  degree,  anything  that 
had  been  known  before. 

To  a  foreigner,  much  of  his  poetry  now  seems  anti¬ 
quated.  The  overwhelming  influence  of  Byron,  under 
which  he  ripened,  can  be  seen  too  plainly  in  his  shorter 
epic  poems.  Of  the  four  which  he  wrote  between  1821  and 
1824,  “The  Prisoner  in  the  Caucasus,”  “The  Fountain  in 
Bakhchisarai,”  “  The  Brigand-Brothers,”  and  “  The  Gyp¬ 
sies,”  the  first  is  the  most  pleasing  from  its  pictures  of  na¬ 
ture,  the  next  two  from  a  genuineness  in  the  poet’s  personal 


234 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


emotions,  which  is  not  affected  by  the  close  imitation  of 
Byron’s  “  Giaour,”  “  The  Prisoner  of  Chillon,”  and  “  The 
Corsair.”  Pushkin’s  brigands  certainly  do  not  feel  at  all 
like  real  brigands,  but  he  has  naively  allowed  his  emo¬ 
tional  life  to  find  free  expression  through  them.  “  The 
Gypsies  ”  stands  the  highest.  The  fresh  wildness  with 
which  the  figure  of  the  gypsy  girl  appears  makes  a  very 
strong  impression  in  comparison  with  the  lack  of  moral 
force  in  Alyeko,  who  flies  from  civilization  and  brings 
one  of  its  most  disgusting  vices  with  him  :  jealousy 
which  regards  another  being  whom  it  has  once  loved  as 
its  own  property.  Probably,  this  fine  poem  has  given 
Prosper  Mérimée,  who  has  translated  it,  the  idea  of  his 
masterpiece,  “  Carmen.” 

Like  the  Prisoner  in  the  Caucasus,  Alyeko  suffers  from 
the  Byronic  spleen  and  scepticism.  The  poem  “  Count 
Nulin,”  which  assumes  a  lighter,  more  frivolous  tone, 
again  reminds  us  of  Byron,  especially  of  “  Beppo.”  In 
1823,  Pushkin,  entirely  under  the  influence  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  poet’s  “Don  Juan,”  began  his  chief  work,  “Yevgeni 
Onyégin,”  without  any  plan  ;  and  to  it  he  constantly 
returned  for  seven  years,  in  order  to  express  there  a 
constantly  more  characteristic  poetical  delineation  of 
himself,  and,  above  all,  a  far  more  complete  autobiog¬ 
raphy  than  is  found  in  his  other  poems.  Finally,  his 
great  epic  poem,  “Poltava,”  is  evidently  inspired  by 
Byron’s  “  Mazeppa,”  although,  regarded  in  and  of  itself, 
it  far  surpasses  the  youthful  poem  of  Byron  in  its 
power  of  picturesque  description,  and  in  the  historically 
correct  representation  of  the  appalling  character  of  the 
old  hetman,  which  forms  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
romance  stamp  Byron  has  given  to  the  figure. 

With  the  exception  of  short  lyrical  poems  and  prose 
novels,  in  which  Pushkin  stands  independent,  hardly  a 


PUSHKIN'S  POET  RY. 


235 


poem  of  his  can  be  named  for  which  he  did  not  have 
a  model.  His  tales  in  verse  in  the  popular  style,  like 
the  “  Song  of  Oleg  ”  (pronounced  Aleeokh )  and  his  fairy 
tales  are  modernized  bilini.  Pushkin  was  one  of  the 
first  in  Russia  who  made  collections  from  the  epic  songs 
of  the  people.  His  only  great  drama,  “  Boris  Gudunof,” 
opening  in  such  a  masterly  manner  as  to  give  great  prom¬ 
ise,  is  an  imitation  of  Shakespeare’s  historical  plays, 
especially  of  Richard  III.  and  Macbeth.  That  this  play 
is  widely  celebrated  and  greatly  admired,  while  Prosper 
Mérimée’s  Les  debuts  d’un  Aventurier,  which  with  infi¬ 
nitely  more  originality  and  truth  treats  the  same  theme, 
the  rebellion  of  the  false  Dmitri,  is  almost  wholly 
unknown,  shows  with  how  little  justice  literary  fame  is 
often  awarded.  Finally,  so  far  as  Pushkin’s  ballads 
are  concerned,  they  are  not  only  strongly  inspired  by 
Mickiewicz,  but  two  of  the  best  known  and  most  fre¬ 
quently  translated,  “The  Three  Budrysses”  and  “Voye- 
vods,”  are  verbal  translations  from  the  Polish  poet, 
without  expressly  naming  the  latter.  It  may  possibly 
have  been  stated  in  some  of  the  earlier  editions  of 
Pushkin’s  works,  but  in  the  edition  for  the  people  it  is 
not  mentioned,  and  in  Bodenstedt’s  translation  of  1855 
the  ballads  are  treated  as  Pushkin’s,  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

Necessarily  a  vigorous  independence  permeates  the 
best  of  these  metrical  works,  and  even  more  the  prose 
novels  in  which  Pushkin  took  up  and  developed  the 
Russian  prose  style  created  by  the  great  historian  Ka¬ 
ramzin.  In  so  far  as  Pushkin,  himself  sick,  attains  the 
high  point  of  presenting  the  healthy,  he  possesses,  in 
an  extraordinary  degree,  the  characteristic  of  a  great 
artist.  The  artist  is  generally  an  outlaw,  a  living  irregu¬ 
larity,  a  watch  which  goes  now  too  fast  and  now  too 


236 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


slow, — this  may  even  be  said  of  Shakespeare  and  Moliére, 
—  but  his  surprising  quality  therefore  is  that  the  prod¬ 
uct  is  healthy,  obedient  to  law,  a  watch  which  goes  right. 
So  it  is  with  Pushkin.  As  a  man,  he  was  only  in  too 
high  a  degree  a  child  of  the  St.  Petersburg  civilization, 
a  victim  of  society  culture,  a  slave  of  fashion.  As  a 
poet,  the  more  he  is  developed,  constantly  the  more 
plainly  does  he  show  the  nascent  Slavic  re-action  against 
St.  Petersburg  and  the  hatred  of  all  society  culture,  as 
well  as  of  the  foolish  dominion  of  fashion  which  forms 
the  fundamental  passion  in  “  Yevgeni  Onyégin,”  and 
which  has  its  clearest  expression  when  Onyégin  kills 
his  best  friend,  the  young  Lensky,  in  a  duel  demanded 
by  the  conventionalities  of  society. 

Intellectually  Pushkin  is  far  behind  Byron,  in  whom 
no  satiety  exhausts  the  glowing  enthusiasm  for  freedom, 
which  was  his  life,  and  which  led  him  to  death,  while 
Pushkin’s  youthful  faith  in  freedom,  when  he  came  to 
man’s  estate,  surrendered  to  a  brutal  patriotism.  But 
he  surpasses  Byron  in  his  ability  to  draw  figures.  His 
fine  historical  tale,  “The  Captain’s  Daughter,”  is  the 
precursor  of  Gogol’s  “  Taras  Bulba ;  ”  and  his  admirable 
novels  pave  the  way  for  the  realistic  representations  of 
the  coming  generation  in  what  is  called  by  a  Russian 
critic  “  the  sentimental,  naturalistic  style.” 

How  much  nearer  to  my  heart  is  Pushkin’s  successor, 
Mikhail  Yuryevitch  Lermontof !  How  much  deeper, 
more  intensively,  does  he  act  on  a  receptive  mind ! 
Never  shall  I  forget  the  impression  his  “Hero  of  Our 
Time,”  in  Marmier’s  French  translation,  made  upon  me 
as  a  schoolboy.  It  was  Byronism  in  its  strongest,  most 
delicate  essence,  the  greatness  in  this  Caucasus  to  which 
Lermontof  was  again  and  again  banished,  —  greatness 


LERMONTOF. 


237 


in  nature,  greatness  and  frigidity  in  the  hero’s  soul.  It 
was  the  Prometheus  of  the  newer  time,  chained  to  the 
rocks  of  the  Caucasus.  It  was  courage,  modesty,  thirst 
for  pleasure,  feeling  of  superiority,  bound  up  in  ban¬ 
ishment,  tortured  by  the  eagle’s  beak  of  a  world-weary 
passion  for  scepticism.1  How  I  loved  and  admired  this 
book,  the  first  which  I  understood  as  a  grown-up  man  ! 
How  I  sympathized  with  the  poor  Tscherkesserine 
Bela,  with  the  passionate  and  morbid  Viera,  and  with 
the  little  Princess  Mary,  all  those  women  who  love 
the  hard  and  proud  Petchorin ;  and,  in  the  next  place, 
with  the  good  old  Captain  Maxim  Maximitch,  whose 
admiring  attachment  Petchorin  rewards  with  correspond¬ 
ing  coldness !  And  in  the  preface  to  the  book,  the 
admirable  poem  translated  by  Marmier,  which  is  so 
descriptive  of  Lermontof. 

“  Je  te  rends  graces,  O  Seigneur! 

Du  tableau  varié  d’un  monde  plein  de  charmes, 

Du  feu  des  passions  et  du  vide  du  cceur, 

Du  poison  des  baisers,  de  l’åcreté  des  larmes, 

De  la  liaine  qui  tue  et  de  l’amour  qui  ment, 

De  nos  reves  trompeurs  perdus  dans  les  espaces, 

De  tout,  enfin,  Mon  Dieu!  Puisé-je  seulement 
Ne  pas  longtemps  te  rendre  graces!” 

Bodenstedt  has  given  a  description  of  Lermontof  as 
he  saw  him,  the  winter  before  his  death,  in  a  restaurant 
in  Moscow  :  “  A  young  officer  of  middle  height,  with  a 
stately,  unconstrained  demeanor,  and  unusual  elasticity 
in  all  his  movements.  He  had  his  neckcloth  carelessly 
tied  about  the  neck,  his  uniform  was  not  wholly  buttoned 
up  nor  wholly  new,  but  under  it  dazzling  white  linen 
could  be  seen.”  He  stooped  down  to  pick  up  something 
which  he  had  dropped,  says  Bodenstedt,  “  with  a  supple- 
1  Comp.  Geo.  Brandos:  Soeren  Kierkegaard,  p.  120. 


238 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  R  US  SI  A. 


ness  as  if  all  the  bones  in  his  body  were  broken,  although 
from  his  breast  and  shoulders  you  would  conclude  that 
he  had  a  reasonably  strong  frame.”  And  he  describes 
the  contrast  between  the  great,  sedate,  expressive  eye, 
and  the  mocking  expression  about  the  finely  cut  mouth, 
paints  his  cynicism  in  the  use  of  language,  his  pleasure 
in  showing  himself  superior  to  those  present,  and  his 
sincere  desire  for  reconciliation  when  he  had  offended 
any  one. 

What  we  admire  in  this  description  is  that  it  not 
only  vividly  recalls  Lermontof’s  own  description  of  the 
“Hero  of  our  Time,”  but  that  every  single  expression 
and  turn  corresponds  to  the  place  where  Petchorin 
is  introduced  in  the  section,  Maxim  Maximitch.  It 
reads  thus :  “  He  was  of  middle  height,  elegant  and 
delicate;  but  his  broad  shoulders  augured  a  strong  frame, 
and,  when  you  observed,  you  readily  saw  that  nature 
had  furnished  him  with  power  to  endure  the  toils  of  a 
roving  life,  the  influences  of  varied  climates,  the  whirl¬ 
winds  of  life  in  the  world,  and  the  storms  of  the  soul. 
His  velvet  jacket,  carelessly  buttoned,  betrayed  perfectly 
white  linen,  one  of  the  criterions  of  a  man  of  good 
taste.  .  .  .  When  he  sat  down  on  a  bench,  it  seemed  as 
if  his  frame  folded  itself  up,  just  as  if  he  had  no  back¬ 
bone.  His  whole  bearing  thus  showed  a  kind  of  nervous 
weakness.” 

This  parallel  shows  in  what  a  high  degree  Lermontof 
had  himself  in  mind  in  the  representation  of  the  person 
of  Petchorin,  and  any  one  familiar  with  the  whole  work 
will  easily  see  how  much  of  Petchorin  there  is  also 
found  in  the  distracted  leading  characters  in  his  two 
greatest  poems,  “  The  Demon  ”  ånd  “  Ismael-Bey.” 

Lermontof 1  was  born  in  Moscow.  While  yet  a  boy,  he 
1  Of  the  Scotch  family  of  Learmout  originally. 


EXILED  FOR  ELEGY  ON  PUSHKIN. 


239 


visited  the  wild,  picturesque  mountain  regions  of  the 
Caucasus,  absorbed  Byronism,  studied  at  the  university 
in  his  native  city,  went  through  the  school  for  gentle¬ 
men’s  sons  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  left  it  as  cornet  in  the 
hussar  regiment,  and  while  only  a  young  officer  was 
already  known  for  wanton  and  indecent  verse.  The 
poem  Hadji- Abrek,  written  in  his  early  youth,  is  strong 
and  harsh  as  a  fantasy  of  Mériinée  written  in  verse. 
In  1837  the  twenty-three-years-old  poet  was  for  the  first 
time  exiled  to  the  Caucasus  and  for  a  reason  possible 
only  in  Russia,  for  his  elegy  on  Pushkin’s  death,  which 
simply  expressed  what  everybody  felt,  the  Tsar  included, 
but  in  which  Lermontof  had  shown  the  boldness  to  call 
on  Nicholas  for  vengeance  on  the  murderer,  who  was 
one  of  the  favorites  of  the  Imperial  Court  —  as  he  after¬ 
wards  in  the  reign  of  Napoleon  III.  was  one  of  the  cour¬ 
tiers,  best  known  for  his  shameless  appearance  in  the 
Senate  as  the  leader  of  Orthodoxy  against  Sainte-Beuve. 

At  the  end  of  a  year  Lermontof  was  pardoned,  and 
then  lived  for  some  time  in  St.  Petersburg,  where  he  was 
already  highly  esteemed  as  a  poet.  lie  published  his 
“  Song  of  the  Tsar  Ivan  Vasilyevitch,  of  his  young  chief 
of  the  life  guard,  and  the  bold  merchant  Kalaslinikof.” 
Pushkin  had  already  tried  his  hand  at  giving  the  keynote 
of  the  old  bilim,  yet  only  in  purely  romantic  poems. 
Lermontof  reproduced  the  spirit  of  the  historical  and 
heroic  bilim  in  a  graceful  little  epic,  sustained  in  the 
most  correct  style,  which  breathes  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
age  of  Ivan  III.,  expressed  with  pure  native  simplicity. 
What  an  artist  he  was,  this  demon  in  human  form,  who 
as  a  boy  was  man,  and  who  died  in  his  youth  after  having 
produced  works  of  undying  importance. 

And  at  the  same  time  he  wrote  a  host  of  short  lyrical 
poems,  in  'which  his  proud  soul  unreservedly  exposes 


240 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


his  stubbornness.  Pushkin  could  yield,  allow  himself  to 
be  won  over,  compromise,  become  a  patriot  of  brutality, 
—  he,  never !  His  friends  disappointed  and  betrayed 
him.  He  continued  faithful  in  friendship.  Others  were 
reconciled  to  what  they  hated.  He  continued  faithful 
to  himself  in  his  hate.  The  greatness  and  elevation  of 
his  inner  being  exposed  him  ever  and  again  to  a  fall. 
He  continued  to  experience  great  emotions  and  to  think 
freely.  He  was  surrounded  by  spies,  suspected  when 
he  was  silent,  accused  when  he  spoke,  denounced,  slan¬ 
dered,  hated,  abandoned.  He  was  always  far  greater 
and  stronger  than  his  fate.  He  never  bowed  the  knee 
to  Baal. 

They  reviled  him  for  being  a  poor  patriot.  He  an¬ 
swered  :  “  I  do  indeed  love  my  fatherland,  but  I  can 
feel  no  enthusiasm  for  barbarity.  I  do  not  value  that 
fame  which  is  bought  with  blood,  nor  that  proud  confi¬ 
dence  which  relies  on  bayonets,  and  least  of  all  in  the 
glory  of  the  heroes  of  antiquity.”  (The  poem  “  My 
Patherland.”)  And  a  similar  outburst  of  contempt  and 
disgust  for  bloody  honor  ends  the  masterly  battle-piece 
“Valerik.”  How  conventional  does  not  Pushkin  appear 
in  comparison  ! 

The  most  hidden  emotions  of  Lermontof  are  re¬ 
vealed  in  the  collection  “Little  Conceits  and  Pancies.” 
They  tortured  him  because  he  dared  to  think,  stoned 
him  because  he  dared  to  speak  ;  they  could  make  no 
answer,  and  that  was  the  sole  cause  of  their  frenzy. 
But  lie  does  not  envy  them  their  decorations,  nor  their 
servility  by  which  they  were  won.  They  robbed  him  of 
everything  except  his  pride  and  his  courage.  He  was 
on  fire  for  the  beautiful,  fought  for  the  true.  The 
others  found  that  to  be  bad  and  dangerous.  When 
liberty  is  taken  from  him,  long,  solitary  contemplation 


LERMONTOF’ S  DEATH. 


241 


changed  his  hate  to  boundless  contempt.  He  knows  that 
a  single  prayer  for  mercy,  a  single  repentant  word,  would 
open  to  him  all  paths,  but  he  would  rather  fall  down  in 
his  chains  than  say  the  one  lying  word  which  could  save 
him.  He  does  not  grudge  the  others  their  pleasures  ;  he 
allows  the  others  to  deplore  his  condition  ;  he  would 
rather  suffer  everything  than  be  like  them. 

In  1840  Lermontof  was  a  second  time  banished  to  the 
Caucasus,  for  a  duel  with  a  son  of  the  French  minister, 
the  historian  of  literature,  Barante.  In  principle  he  was 
opposed  to  duels,  but,  as  a  nobleman  and  an  officer,  he 
could  not  free  himself  from  the  laws  of  society  which 
were  honored  about  him.  Shortly  after  he  left  the  capi¬ 
tal,  his  romance,  “The  Hero  of  Our  Time,”  appeared. 
In  this  book  several  characters  are  found,  the  prototypes 
of  which  could  be  found  in  the  higher  ranks  of  society 
of  his  day.  A  comrade  of  Lermontof,  Martynof,  felt 
that  he  was  insulted  in  several  places  in  the  book. 
Probably  he  thought  himself  portrayed  in  the  person 
of  Gruzhnitski.  When  the  poet,  one  day,  made  a  joke 
about  him,  the  latter  embraced  the  opportunity  for  a 
challenge.  In  the  duel  which  followed,  Lermontof  was 
killed,  on  July  15,  1841,  pierced  through  the  heart.  A 
memorial  to  him  was  raised  at  Pyatigorsk,  in  the 
vicinity  of  which  he  fell. 

There  was  a  demon  in  him,  a  ruling  spirit,  hot  and 
cold,  good  and  cruel,  wild  and  tender ;  cherishing  inde¬ 
pendence  in  defiance  of  everything  above  him,  and  to 
emancipation  from  everything  which  would  cling  to  him. 
Young  as  Lermontof  was,  he  was  often  obliged  to  ask 
himself  if  he  was  not  possessed  of  an  evil  spirit,  — one 
which  gained  him  women,  who  soon  became  a  burden  to 
him  ;  one  which  laughed  disdainfully  at  him,  and  mocked 
him,  where  others  were  moved  pathetically.  If  he  had 


242 


MPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


lived  more  than  the  twenty-seven  years  which  were 
vouchsafed  to  him,  this  question  would  not  have  troubled 
him  more.  He  would  then  have  felt  that  his  powers 
were  sound,  his  right  secure,  his  nature  rich  and  great, 
and  that  the  source  of  his  being  was  situated  beyond 
the  contrast  between  good  and  evil. 

We  have  from  him  only  the  above  peerless  prose 
romance  and  several  volumes  of  poems,  in  which  there 
are  several  erasures,  which  are  real  gaps,  made  by  the 
censor.1  Of  his  “  Stories  for  Children,”  we  see  that 
what  we,  for  example,  possess  of  the  “  Demon  ”  —  this 
poem  which  is  so  popular  in  Russia  that  the  illustra¬ 
tions  to  it  are  to  be  seen  on  every  wall,  and  that  Rubin¬ 
stein  has  made  it  the  text  of  one  of  his  operas  —  is  in 
reality  so  little  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  poet,  “  there 
is  not  left  a  trace  of  the  demoniac  nature  of  the  spirit.” 
Nevertheless,  how  high  does  not  this  “  Demon  ”  stand 
above  De  Vigny’s  celebrated  “  Eloa.” 

The  whole  romance  of  the  Caucasian  country  lives  in 
this  poetry,  —  nature  and  man  saturated  with  a  wild, 
heroic  spirit,  illuminated  by  youthful  defiance,  like  light¬ 
ning  in  lightning.  No  one  describes  so  fascinatingly  as 
Lermontof  the  solitary  ride  of  a  young  Circassian  prince 
through  the  mountain-paths  of  the  Caucasus.  No  one 
like  him  has  pictured  a  battle  between  the  Cossacks  and 
the  Caucasians.  Pushkin’s  battle  picture  in  “Poltava” 
is  powerful  and  pompous  :  it  is  a  poet’s  fantastic  recon¬ 
struction  of  a  past.  In  Lermontof’s  “Valerick”  every 
little  trait  has  been  experienced,  seen,  and  reproduced 
in  so  striking  and  admirable  a  manner,  that  no  other 
poem  brings  us  nearer  to  him.  We  see  him  by  himself, 

1  The  same  imbecile  censor  wlio  forbade  all  representations  of 
women  in  statuary  which  “  were  not  fully  dressed,  —  that  is,  from  the 
chin  to  the  knees.” 


HIS  DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY. 


243 


as  he  lies  there  before  the  battle  begins,  with  the  white 
tents  of  the  camp  stretched  out  before  his  eyes,  while 
the  Cossack  horses,  small  and  thin,  stand  with  hanging 
heads  by  his  side.  We  feel  the  sun  burn,  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  Cossack  sentinels,  two  by  two,  in  the  distance, 
hear  the  first  bullets  and  the  first  cries.  And  the  more 
thoroughly  we  become  acquainted  with  Lermontof  as  a 
man  and  as  an  author,  the  dearer  he  becomes  to  us. 

It  is  emblematical  that  his  life  was  a  series  of  slights 
and  exiles  in  a  land  where,  as  he  himself  has  somewhere 
said,  “  no  one  comes  forward,  except  those  who  go  back¬ 
ward.”  His  poetry  produces  its  effect  by  its  strong  per¬ 
sonal  originality.  He  began,  like  all  Russian  authors, 
under  foreign  influences,  particularly  the  German  roman¬ 
ticism  of  terror,  —  a  work  of  his  youth  has  the  title 
Menschen  und  Leidensclwften  ;  afterwards,  like  the  Poles 
and  Pushkin,  he  looks  up  to  P>yron  as  the  great  poet  of 
the  age ;  but,  although  he  dies  so  very  young,  younger 
even  than  Shelley,  his  manly  and  proud  face  stands  out 
before  us  with  pure  and  distinct  features. 

He  was  too  much  occupied  with  his  own  thoughts  and 
his  own  affairs  to  be  able  to  unfold  the  broad  Russia  to 
our  gaze ;  he  was  a  revolutionary  romanticist,  but  still 
a  romanticist.  Shortly  after  him,  or  at  the  same  time 
with  him,  new  influences  had  begun  to  exert  a  force  in 
Russian  literature  and  intellectual  life,  which  were 
destined  to  displace  him  and  Pushkin. 


IV. 


With  Gogol  a  new  inspiration  came  to  Europe  from 
Russia.  With  him,  authors  ceased  to  describe  themselves. 
He  was  wholly  absorbed  by  his  subject,  and  the  reader  no 
longer  received  the  impression  of  the  spiritual  life  of  a  man 
of  the  world  and  a  cosmopolite,  but  of  the  national  pecul¬ 
iarities  of  the  subject  as  it  was  displayed  in  the  soul  of 
a  genuine  Russian.  Gogol  possessed  an  extraordinarily 
artistic  talent,  which  two  or  three  times  rose  to  genius, 
but  which  speedily  declined,  because  it  was  a  genius 
without  moral  views,  which  was  supported  neither  by 
culture  nor  character. 

Nikolai  Vasilyevitch  Gogol  (1809-1852)  was  by  birth  a 
Little  Russian,  and  as  a  child  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  tra¬ 
ditions  of  the  bold  and  eventful  Cossack  troopers  in  the 
Ukraine.  His  father,  an  impoverished  landed  proprie¬ 
tor,  possessed  no  mean  capacities  as  a  narrator  and  actor, 
which  the  son  inherited  from  him.  As  a  boy,  he  had 
already  displayed  a  considerable  power  of  observation  of 
human  stupidity  and  weakness. 

In  St.  Petersburg,  he  tried  without  success  the  career 
of  an  actor,  and  then  that  of  a  government  official,  when, 
by  the  aid  of  Pushkin,  he  obtained  a  position  as  professor 
of  history  in  the  university.  He  utterly  failed  in  this, 
on  account  of  a  lack  of  preparatory  knowledge  and  defec¬ 
tive  education,  and  abandoned  it  for  the  profession  of  an 
author. 

He  made  his  debut  as  a  humorist,  — a  strong  and  confi- 
244 


GOGOL'S  SHORTER  STORIES. 


245 


dent  humorist,  —  who  used  his  talent  on  subjects  of  small 
compass,  taken  at  first  from  the  country  life  of  Little 
Russia,  which  he  knew  so  thoroughly,  and  then  from  the 
lower,  poorer,  gay,  disorderly  life  in  St.  Petersburg.  In 
these  tales,  he  weaves  into  his  pictures  of  real  life  a 
free  imagination.  That  he  starts  from  romanticism  is 
shown  by  such  tales  as  “  King  of  the  Spirits  of  Earth,” 
“Notes  of  a  Lunatic,”  or  “The  Nose.”  This  last  story, 
which  is  essentially  a  study  after  E.  T.  A.  Hoffman,  is 
the  wildest  capriccio  on  the  theme  :  a  suddenly  lost  and 
then  regained  nose,  an  ingenious  and  humorous  story 
for  children  of  an  older  growth,  but  without  any  deeper 
meaning.  The  celebrated  history  of  the  “  Quarrel  be¬ 
tween  Ivan  Ivanovitch  and  Ivan  Nikiforovitch”  is  a 
humorous,  amusing  story,  well  carried  through  in  style, 
on  the  all-consuming  spirit  of  frivolity  and  conceit  in 
Little  Russia,  written  in  much  the  same  style  as  Gott¬ 
fried  Keller  later  wrote  his  humorous  stories  about  the 
faults  and  vices  of  the  Swiss. 

With  the  historical  romance  “  Taras  Bulba,”  which,  in 
Russia,  is  of  repute  as  an  heroic  epic,  Gogol  entered  upon 
a  new  path.  The  narrative  describes  the  heroic  period 
in  the  Cossack  world  during  the  struggles  for  liberty 
against  the  Poles.  But  in  spite  of  the  greatness  of  the 
style  and  the  realism  with  which  this  picture  of  a  wild, 
extinct  past  is  painted,  the  book  has  the  common  defects 
of  historical  romances.  The  idealism  which,  as  a  rule, 
has  dictated  them  weakens  their  effect.  That  which  is 
most  beautiful  in  them  is  not  true  ;  we  feel  behind  the 
whole  description  that  he  started  out  with  the  intention 
of  glorification  ;  we  notice  how  the  author  puts  opportu¬ 
nities  in  the  way  of  this  heroism,  which  in  the  middle  of 
the  battle  displays  itself  in  a  single  combat,  and  fastens 
upon  it  the  gaze  of  all. 


246 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Among  the  longer  and  shorter  stories  in  the  first  three 
volumes  of  Gogol  there  is  not  one  which  is  out  and  out 
worthy  of  admiration,  except  “The  Cloak.”  It  is  the 
simple  story  of  a  poor  St.  Petersburg  official  who 
through  half  his  life  has  needed  a  Spanish  cloak,  which 
he  finally  obtains,  and  from  whom  it  is  stolen.  De 
Vogue  quotes  a  saying  of  a  Russian  author,  “We  have 
all  grown  out  of  Gogol’s  ‘cloak.’”  There  is  this  truth 
in  it,  that  the  whole  of  the  modern  emotional  Russian 
naturalism  descends  in  a  direct  line  from  this  little  story. 
Dostoyevski’s  first  book,  “Poor  Polk,”  may  be  named  as 
having  had  its  germ  here. 

Nevertheless,  even  this  Classical  story  does  not  give  to 
the  Western  European  reader  the  standard  of  Gogol’s  high 
rank  as  a  modern  author.  That  is  done  only  by  his  play, 
“  The  Reviser,”  and  the  first  part  of  the  romance,  “  Dead 
Souls.”  It  is  the  stinging  satire  and  the  bold  fidelity  to 
nature,  expressed  in  a  vigorous  style,  which  here  first 
betrayed  Gogol’s  great  superiority  to  the  circumstances 
in  which  he  was  born,  and  which  showed  that  Russian 
literature  was  ready  to  launch  out  into  an  entirely  new 
field,  which  demanded  boldness  and  originality  to  enter, 
and  which  this  literature  silently,  as  it  were,  pointed  out 
to  that  of  several  other  countries  lost  in  romanticism, 
as  the  path  which  alone  emerges  from  the  world  of 
dreams. 

However  Aristophanic  the  satire  is  in  “Dead  Souls,” 
the  theories  on  which  this  comic  epic  rests  are  so  pecul¬ 
iar  that  they  appear  to  the  foreign  reader  like  a  story 
from  another  part  of  the  world  or  from  a  remote  age. 
Outside  of  Russia,  even  the  cunning  conceit  about  which 
everything  in  the  story  revolves  can  hardly  be  under¬ 
stood  :  the  idea  of  the  audacious  speculator,  of  buying 
up  dead  serfs,  who  were  still  nominally  counted  as  liv- 


“TIIE  REVISER  ”  AND  “  DEAD  SOULS.”  247 


ing,  carrying  them  to  a  worthless  tract  of  land,  and  then 
mortgaging  them  to  a  bank. 

The  drama,  “  The  Reviser,”  on  the  other  hand,  is  per¬ 
fectly  intelligible  everywhere,  and  is  as  pointed  as  it  is 
simple  in  its  plot.  More  than  twenty-five  years  were 
demanded  to  raise  the  Norse  drama,  under  Henrick 
Ibsen,  to  this  height ;  the  German  drama  has  not  yet 
attained  it. 

It  is  said  that  it  was  Pushkin  who  gave  Gogol  the 
idea  of  “The  Reviser.”  If  so,  he  deserves  just  as  much 
honor  for  it  as  for  any  finished  work  of  his  own  of  any 
kind  whatever.  For  there  is  hardly  a  single  play  in 
modern  literature  which  can  compare  with  it  in  wit. 
But  it  is  improbable  that  Gogol  is  greatly  indebted  to 
Pushkin  for  this.  For  a  careful  examination  shows  that 
his  two  great  modern  works,  “The  Reviser”  and  “Dead 
Souls,”  notwithstanding  all  the  differences  required  by 
the  forms  of  drama  and  romance,  are  alike  in  all  essen¬ 
tial  points.  In  both,  the  fundamental  defects  of  differ¬ 
ent  ranks  and  types  of  a  whole  community  are  subjected 
to  a  test,  in  which  all  these  men  are  brought  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  a  single  person,  a  rather  common  but  shameless 
sort  of  a  being,  before  whom  they  stand  as  before  a  mys¬ 
tery  they  are  not  sure  of  having  penetrated.  In  the 
play,  this  person  makes,  directly  or  indirectly,  unusual 
claims  upon  them,  because  he  is  regarded  by  them  as  a 
superior  officer  sent  by  the  government  to  inquire  into 
their  conduct,  and  whom,  with  their  guilty  consciences, 
they  meet  with  bent  backs  and  full  hands.  In  the 
novel,  this  person  makes  an  unusual  proposal  to  them, 
because  he  offers  them  a  bargain  never  heard  of  before,  — 
the  disposal  of  their  dead  souls  ;  but  in  both  cases  he 
compels  them  to  unveil  their  true  characters  and  dis¬ 
close  their  weakest  points. 


248 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Nowhere  else  in  the  comic  literature  known  to  me  is 
there  found  a  more  vigorous  comic  denouement  than  that 
which  is  presented  just  after  the  disappearance  of 
Khlestyakof  with  all  the  spoils  he  has  secured  and  the 
recollections  of  the  favors  he  has  enjoyed  from  the 
ladies,  when  the  coming  of  the  real  reviser  is  announced, 
and  we  feel  that  a  day  of  judgment  is  breaking  in  upon 
the  sinners  who  have  just  bought  their  freedom  in  the 
wrong  place. 

As  is  well  known,  the  government  had  serious  misgiv¬ 
ings  about  allowing  “  The  Reviser  ”  to  appear.  Finally 
Nicholas  gave  his  consent,  and  at  the  first  performance 
burst  into  such  laughter  that  he  called  the  author  to  his 
box  and  said  to  him  :  “  I  have  never  laughed  before  as 
I  have  this  evening.”  —  “I  had  really  aimed  at  another 
effect,”  was  Gogol’s  manly  answer. 

And  yet  he  did  not  himself  comprehend  the  scope  of 
his  comedy ;  it  was  the  product  of  a  satirical  genius,  not 
of  a  conviction.  With  his  deficient  culture  he  was  a 
Russian  patriot  in  the  sense  that  all  the  Russian  institu¬ 
tions  and  peculiarities  were  good,  viz. :  absolute  power, 
bureaucracy,  suppression  of  all  individual  independence, 
and  above  all  Greek  Orthodoxy.  When  he  became 
melancholy  with  his  advancing  years,  it  came  over  him 
that  his  principal  satirical  works  were  wicked,  traitorous 
to  his  fatherland,  and  he  bitterly  repented  of  them.  In 
1846  he  surprised  the  Russian  reading  world  by  the 
publication  of  his  “  Selected  Correspondence,”  in  which 
he  declared  war  against  the  civilization  of  Western 
Europe,  glorified  re-action  and  obscurantism,  nay,  fur¬ 
nished  a  defence  for  serfdom. 

In  this  condition  of  mind,  to  make  amends  for  the 
first  part  of  “  Dead  Souls,”  he  wrote  an  unreadable 
second  part,  with  purely  virtuous  persons.  He  became 


GOGOL’S  DEATH. 


249 


absorbed  in  theological  meditations.  His  friends  in  vain 
sent  him  abroad  to  travel  to  liberate  him  from  his  con¬ 
ceptions  of  the  decadence  of  the  heathen  Western  Europe. 
He  journeyed  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Wiesbaden,  from 
Wiesbaden  to  Paris  and  Rome,  and  undertook  a  pilgrim¬ 
age  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem.  The  revolution  of  1848 
finally  made  him  an  unconditional  supporter  and  admirer 
of  the  system  of  government  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  and 
brought  him  to  the  highest  degree  of  Orthodox  fanat¬ 
icism.  Four  years  after  he  was  found  one  winter  day  in 
Moscow,  starved  to  death  before  a  shrine,  before  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  lie  for  days  in  silent  prayer.1 

We  pay  little  heed  to  the  fact  that  a  man  like  Gogol 
was  a  Little  Russian.  The  reason  for  this  is  that,  as 
soon  as  he  manifested  a  turn  for  poetry,  his  father 
gave  him  the  decided  advice  to  write  only  in  Great  Rus¬ 
sian,  and  that  Gogol  followed  his  advice.  Almost  all 
the  authors  born  in  Little  Russia,  in  view  of  the  con¬ 
tempt  with  which  their  language  has  been  treated  as  a 
peasant  tongue,  good  for  common  people,  in  which  they 
could  only  address  themselves  to  a  public  of  school¬ 
teachers  and  popes,  have  written  in  one  of  the  great 
neighboring  languages,  Russian  or  Polish.  The  Little 
Russians  Padura,  Tchaikovski,  Groza,  have  thus  in  the 
beginning  only  written  in  their  mother  tongue  and  later 
in  Polish.  The  same  thing  is  also  true  of  Bogdan  Zabski.2 
For,  however  much  the  Polish  language  is  set  aside  and 
suppressed,  the  suppression  it  endures  is  not  like  that 
which  is  used  towards  the  Little-Russian  tongue,  against 

1  “Taras  Bulba,”  “Dead  Souls,”  “St.  John’s  Eve  and  Other 
Stories,”  including  “The  Cloak,”  have  been  translated  by  Isabel  F. 
Hapgood.  (T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  N.Y.)  Prosper  Merimee  has  made 
a  masterly  translation  of  “  The  Reviser”  in  French. 

2  See  G.  Brandes:  Indtryk  fra  Polen ,  pp.  227. 


250 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


which  a  real  war  of  extermination  has  by  degrees  been 
finally  reached. 

No  single  person  has  been  hit  harder  in  this  war  than 
Gogol’s  contemporary  Taras  Grigorovitch  Shevtchenko 
(1814-1861),  the  greatest  poet  whom  the  Little-Russian 
people  have  ever  produced.  While  the  other  poets  in 
the  Little-Russian  dialect  have  built  wholly  upon  the 
popular  ballads  of  the  Ukraine,  appropriated  them  and 
carried  them  farther  by  adding  individual  personality, 
European  culture,  and  artistic  style,  Shevtchenko  alone, 
although  he  is  poet  of  the  people  above  everything,  has 
raised  himself  high  above  the  level  hitherto  attained  by 
the  Little-Russian  literature. 

Shevtchenko  was  born  in  a  village  in  the  department 
of  Kief,  and  was  the  son  of  a  serf  peasant  who  belonged 
to  a  rude  German  landed  proprietor,  Engelhard.  At  the 
age  of  eight  he  had  a  stepmother  who  tormented  him, 
and  at  eleven  he  lost  his  father.  He  was  sent  to  school 
to  the  parish  clerk,  a  drunken  scamp,  who  flogged  the 
boy  and  treated  him  cruelly,  for  fear  that  he,  by  his 
rapid  progress,  would  soon  outshine  him  in  knowledge 
and  deprive  him  of  his  bread.  The  boy  ran  away, 
roamed  about  homeless  for  some  time,  and  then  came  a 
second  time  under  instruction,  this  time  under  a  servant 
of  the  church  who  painted  shrines,  in  order  to  learn  the 
art  from  him.  This  one  also  whipped  him  so  inhumanly 
that  he  ran  away  and  took  a  place  as  a  swineherd  in 
the  village  where  he  was  born.  Here  his  master’s  atten¬ 
tion  was  drawn  to  the  remarkable  swineherd  who  could 
read  and  draw,  and  he  took  him  into  his  personal  service 
as  bootblack  and  pipe-cleaner.  When  he  was  caught 
copying  pictures  with  a  stolen  pencil,  on  paper  also 
stolen,  Engelhard  had  him  punished  with  the  knout ; 
that  was  at  least  suitable  for  a  serf.  Nevertheless,  when 


SHEVTCHENKO. 


251 


it  became  certain  in  many  ways  that  the  hoy  had  talent, 
he  sent  him  to  a  painting  master  in  St.  Petersburg,  in 
hopes  of  getting  the  money  he  laid  out  on  him  richly 
repaid  in  due  time.  Here  Shevtchenko  began  to  draw 
with  his  own  hand,  awakened  the  interest  of  an  artist, 
who  recommended  him  to  Zhukovski.  The  latter,  ready 
and  humane  as  he  always  was,  took  the  young  man’s 
cause  in  hand.  The  first  thing  to  he  done  was  to  buy  his 
freedom.  Engelhard  asked  twenty-five  hundred  rubles 
for  this  “soul.”  Zhukovski  had  his  portrait,  which  the 
court-painter  Brylof,  who  has  been  previously  spoken  of, 
was  going  to  paint,  sold  by  lottery  and  obtained  the  sum 
needed.  In  1838  the  emancipated  serf  began  his  studies 
in  the  Academy,  and,  having  served  his  time,  left  it  in 
1844  to  go  to  Little  Russia  to  find  there  subjects  for 
pictures  and  poems. 

In  the  mean  time,  he  had  begun  to  write  verse.  In 
1840  he  had  already  published  his  first  collection  of 
poems,  Khobzar  (The  Singer),  —  lyrical  tendency  poems, 
which  with  deep  national  feeling  dwelt  on  the  heroic 
memories  of  the  Little-Russian  people,  their  suffer¬ 
ings  in  the  past  and  their  hopes  for  the  future.  His 
anxiety  for  everything  which  could  operate  for  the 
breaking-up  of  the  monotony  in  the  empire,  manifested 
in  tliis  collection  of  poems,  made  the  government  with¬ 
draw  all  support  from  Shevtchenko,  and  place  him  under 
the  supervision  of  the  police.  The  year  after,  he  pub¬ 
lished  his  largest  work,  the  Little-Russian  epic  poem, 
“The  Haidamaks,”  and  still  later  several  different  smaller 
poems  in  the  almanacs.  In  a  poem  called  “  Caucasus,” 
he  commemorated  an  unfortunate  friend  of  his,  Count 
Balmén,  who  on  account  of  his  liberal  views  had  been 
sent  as  a  common  soldier  to  the  Caucasian  army.  For 
this  imprudence  Shevtchenko,  in  spite  of  his  reputation, 


252 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


was  condemned  in  1847  to  be  whipped,  and,  after  the 
execution  of  that  sentence,  to  go  as  a  common  soldier  to 
Orenburg.  He  was  also  most  strictly  forbidden  to  write. 

At  first  he  remained  for  some  time  in  Orenburg  itself, 
then  in  the  fortress  of  Orsk  ;  then  he  took  part  in  an 
expedition  to  Lake  Aral,  and  at  last  he  was  transferred 
to  fort  Nev-Petrovsk  on  the  Asiatic  shore  of  the  Caspian 
Sea. 

While  still  in  Orenburg,  he  had  again  followed  his 
irresistible  impulse  to  write.  Thousands  of  copies  of 
his  poems  of  freedom  and  vengeance,  which  then  issued 
from  his  pen,  were  distributed  in  the  Ukraine,  and, 
during  the  time  of  the  revolt  in  1848,  were  printed  in 
Galicia.  A  second  time  he  was  punished  by  the  lash. 
It  did  not  crush  him.  But  in  Nev-Petrovsk,  whither  he 
was  last  taken,  and  where  the  garrison  was  made  up  of 
the  most  worthless  dregs  of  society,  while  the  duty  was 
the  most  arduous  that  can  be  imagined,  and  where 
neither  a  human  being  in  whom  the  poet  could  confide, 
nor  even  a  book  or  newspaper,  could  be  found,  he  sick¬ 
ened,  and  slowly  grew  stupid. 

When,  after  the  lapse  of  seven  years  (1857),  his 
admirers  in  St.  Petersburg,  especially  Countess  Alexis 
Tolstoi,  at  last  obtained  his  discharge  from  the  military 
service,  the  commander  of  the  fort  was  able  to  support 
the  petition  by  the  statement,  “The  man  is  harmless.” 
He  went  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  there  wrote,  with  powers 
flaming  up  anew,  a  bitterly  scornful  poem,  “The  Brothers’ 
Mission,”  against  Russian  Panslavism,  which  would  free 
other  people,  but  cruelly  oppress  the  Slavic  races  in 
Russia,  published  several  works  anonymously,  and  wrote 
a  short  autobiography. 

He  was  cured  of  the  uncritical  enthusiasm  of  his 
youth  for  the  Cossack  part  of  the  Ukraine.  “Hetman- 


“  THE  HAIDAMAKS .” 


253 


ship  ”  had  lost  its  romantic  halo  for  him.  Against  the 
traditions  of  its  nobility  he  now  placed  the  idea  of  the 
emancipation  of  the  peasants ;  aud  against  the  literary 
world  of  the  Slavophiles,  he  proposed  what  they  forgot 
or  overlooked, — the  severe  distress  of  the  people  of 
Little  Russia,  the  misery  which  thraldom  and  ignorance 
has  brought  upon  them. 

He  died  in  St.  Petersburg  in  February,  1861,  and, 
according  to  his  wish,  he  was  buried  in  Kaniof  in  the 
Ukraine.  However  much  ill  he  had  personally  suffered, 
however  great  was  the  persecution  of  the  Little-Russian 
nationality  to  which  he  had  been  a  witness,  still  he  did 
not  live  to  see  what  would  have  afflicted  him  more  than 
any  personal  torture  to  which  he  had  been  subjected,  — 
the  prohibition  issued  in  1875,  and  constantly  enforced 
down  to  the  present  time,  against  printing  or  publishing 
in  the  Russian  Empire  any  kind  of  a  book  or  newspaper 
in  the  Little-Russian  language. 

Shevtchenko’s  poetry  is  thus  not  only  the  highest  and 
richest  expression  which  the  race  to  which  he  belongs 
has  attained  in  literature,  but  it  is  for  the  present  its  last 
expression.  His  gifts  are  varied ;  he  wrote  political 
lyrics,  idylls,  love  poems,  short  sketches  of  society  in 
verse,  and  a  great  historical  epic  in  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Dumas,  which  among  the  modern  Slavic  epics 
is  surpassed  only  by  Mickiewicz’s  incomparable  “  Pan 
Tadeusz.”  “  The  Haidamaks  ”  (that  is,  the  Cossack  war¬ 
riors)  treats  of  the  last  independent  revolt  of  the  Little- 
Russian  popular  spirit,  the  Cossack  insurrection  of  1770 
under  Gonta.  It  was  directed  against  the  nobility  of 
Poland,  who  in  those  days  oppressed  the  Ukraine  in  a 
cruel  manner,  and  who,  when  it  came  to  the  point,  were 
too  imbecile  and  disorganized  to  defend  themselves. 
But  the  Russian  government,  which  was  alarmed  lest  the 


254 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


disturbances  should  spread  within  the  confines  of  Russia, 
determined  to  interfere.  The  leader  of  the  Russian 
army,  Romanzov,  proposed  to  Gonta  an  alliance  against 
the  Poles,  lured  him  and  the  officer  next  in  command 
into  an  ambush,  and  immediately  delivered  them  to  their 
enemies.  Then  the  Cossack  army,  which  had  been  de¬ 
prived  of  its  leaders,  was  surrounded,  captured,  and 
fully  eight  thousand  men  were  divided  in  crowds  among 
the  cities  of  Poland  for  execution.  Gonta  and  the  other 
chiefs  were  broken  alive  on  the  wheel,  and  all  the  com¬ 
mon  men  without  exception  were  executed  in  different 
ways.  They  generally  preferred  suffocation  to  hanging, 
on  account  of  its  convenience,  and  to  save  the  trees. 
This  is  the  subject  which  Shevtchenko,  without  going 
out  of  his  way  for  horrors,  has  presented,  describing  the 
cruelties  the  oppressed  were  guilty  of  as  fully  as  those 
which  were  inflicted  upon  them,  yet  only  to  the  extent  that 
this  historic  scene  furnishes  the  background  for  the  fate 
of  a  pair  of  lovers. 

His  little  pictures  of  society,  which  are  usually  idyllic 
and  emotional,  are  not  wanting  in  marks  of  an  energy 
which  sees  life  as  it  is  at  its  worst.  In  one  of  the  best, 
“  The  Drowned,”  he  tells  the  story  of  a  mother  and 
daughter  who  lived  in  a  country  village,  and  whose 
ghosts  now  on  moonlight  nights  are  seen  hovering  to 
and  fro  over  the  steppes  along  the  banks  of  the  streams. 
The  mother  was  a  Russian,  proud  and  sensual,  rich  and 
beautiful,  a  young  widow,  who  held  a  court  for  her 
admirers.  She  gave  birth  to  the  daughter  secretly,  and 
put  her  out  to  nurse  in  a  poor  Little-Russian  peasant 
family.  The  daughter  grew  up,  became  an  extraordinary 
beauty,  and  when  the  mother  finally  took  her  home,  she 
received  more  attention  in  the  rich  house  than  the 
mother.  When  the  latter  became  possessed  with  jealous 


ALEXANDER  lVÅNOVITCLl  HERZEN. 


255 


hate,  she  gave  her  daughter  poison,  and  when  the  poison 
did  not  result  in  death,  she  went  with  her  to  take  a  bath, 
seized  her  by  her  long  braids  of  hair,  and  hurled  her  out 
into  the  eddies  of  the  stream,  where  she  met  with  death. 

There  runs  through  this  poem  the  attempt  to  show  the 
coarse  and  cruel  traits  of  character  in  the  Great-Russian 
race,  without  sparing  the  poet’s  own  countrymen.  But 
the  vices  he  upbraids  them  for  are  the  vices  of  the 
oppressed :  self-abandonment  and  cowardice.  Thus  in 
the  poem,  “Taras’s  Night,”  the  singer  narrates  for  the 
Little-Russian  youth  of  the  country  the  achievements  of 
the  great  hetman,  Taras  Triasylo.  The  circle  listen 
with  tears  in  their  eyes.  But  immediately  after  the  lis¬ 
teners  begin  to  sing  and  dance  with  happy  recklessness. 
Then  the  singer  shouts  to  them,  “  Lie  behind  the  stove  ; 
it  is  warm  and  safe  !  I  will  go  to  the  inn  and  make 
jokes  about  the  Poles  and  Muskovites.  Will  you  go 
with  me  ?  That  you  can  still  do.  But  you  can  no 
longer  have  any  spirit.”  1 

The  history  of  Russian  literature  counts  martyrs  and 
apostles  in  great  number.  The  life  of  Shevtehenko  is  a 
prolonged  martyrdom  ;  among  the  other  great  men  of 
Russia  who  bore  their  part  of  the  martyrdom  there  was 
a  zealous  apostle  who  first  attracted  the  attention  of 
posterity.  A  long  time  imprisoned,  twice  exiled,  and 
finally  banished,  Alexander  Ivanovitch  Herzen  (1S12- 
1870)  is  the  apostle  of  the  new  times  for  Russia. 

He  is,  as  a  spirit,  among  the  Russians  of  this  century, 
what  the  year  1848  is  among  the  years  of  the  century. 
He  is  the  year  1848  in  human  form,  an  incarnation  of  all 

1  Pypin:  Gcscliichte  der  Slavischen  Litteraturen ,  i.  480.  K.  E.  Fran 
zos:  Von  Don  zvr  Dorian ,  i.  85-126.  Selectee]  pieces  of  Shevtehenko 
have  been  translated  into  German  by  J.  G.  Obiest. 


256 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  ideas  which  that  year  came  to  the  front,  and  of  all  the 
noble  struggles  for  liberty  which  were  then  set  in  motion. 

Herzen’s  father  was  a  rich  Russian  grand  seigneur , 
Yakovlef,  a  retired  captain  of  the  Guard,  with  a  colossal 
fortune,  wTlio  had  received  his  whole  culture  from  his 
journeys  in  Western  Europe,  —  a  disciple  of  Voltaire,  who 
read  only  French  and  spoke  it  better  than  Russian.  His 
mother  was  a  young  lady,  the  daughter  of  a  tradesman, 
Louise  Herzen,  from  Stuttgart,  who,  at  the  age  of  seven¬ 
teen,  consented  to  accompany  the  rich  Russian  gentleman 
who  had  won  her  heart  to  his  home  in  Moscow,  and  who 
was  always  treated  as  his  wife,  although  no  marriage  cer¬ 
emony  had  taken  place  between  them.  The  son  was  born 
a  few  months  before  the  French  troops  marched  into 
Moscow,  and  it  was  the  great  event  in  his  father’s  life 
that  Napoleon,  who  was  in  want  of  a  messenger  to  the 
Tsar,  sent  for  the  Russian  nobleman,  who  was  of  old 
known  to  his  Marshal  Mortier,  and  gave  him  a  letter, 
“To  my  brother,  the  Tsar  Alexander,”  and  gave  him 
safe  conduct  out  of  the  burning  city. 

His  father  developed  constantly  more  and  more  into 
a  bitter,  reserved,  aristocratic  eccentricity,  wholly  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  a  boundless  contempt  for  the  human  race. 
His  mother  was  an  unhappy,  solitary  creature,  with 
intellect  and  heart.  In  the  son,  the  qualities  of  parents 
and  ancestors  were  so  mingled  as  to  amount  to  genius. 

He  has  written  his  life,  —  reminiscences  in  three  vol¬ 
umes,  —  and  this  work  ought  not  to  be  neglected  by  any 
one  who  takes  an  interest  in  the  struggle  for  the  devel¬ 
opment  of  modern  Russia.  There  is  no  better  insight 
accessible  to  us.  With  artistic  clearness,  with  the  unre¬ 
servedness  of  an  author  of  memoirs,  Herzen  has  told,  not 
only  the  life  of  his  boyhood  and  youth  to  his  thirty-fifth 
year,  but  he  has  given  the  description  of  a  superior,  inci- 


HERZEN'S  REMINISCENCES. 


257 


sive,  and  penetrating  observer  of  the  social,  political,  and 
literary  conditions  of  Russia  between  1812  and  1847,  and 
especially  of  the  reign  of  Nicholas.  The  observer  of  the 
conditions  is  also  the  victim  of  them  ;  yet  he  has  no  pity 
for  himself,  and  when  he  can  he  uncovers  the  humorous 
side  of  his  misfortunes.  But  with  withering  scorn,  with 
an  indignant,  harrowing  contempt  for  the  throne,  vjitli  a 
heart  which  moans  and  bleeds,  he  spreads  before  the  eve 
of  the  reader  the  heartrending  cruelty  which  proceeded 
from  the  throne  of  the  Tsar,  and  all  that  spirit  of  thral¬ 
dom,  corruption,  and  stupidity  which  made  such  a  rule 
possible. 

He  never  dwells  upon  the  horrible,  and  yet  it  is  a 
question  if  even  Dostoyevski’s  Recollections  of  the 
Dead  House  in  Siberia  contain  pictures  which  fill  one 
with  a  deeper  sense  of  terror.  (See,  for  example,  about 
the  torture  in  the  prisons.)1 

With  Herzen  and  his  friends,  modern  knowledge  and 
modern  philosophy  force  their  way  into  the  Russian 
Empire.  He  and  his  fellow-students  were  first  inspired 
by  the  languid  liberalism  of  Lafayette  and  Benjamin 
Constant,  and  then,  after  the  suppression  of  the  Polish 
revolt  of  1831,  went  through  a  rigorous  course  of  Saint- 
Simonism.  At  the  age  of  fifty,  Herzen  writes  in  his 
reminiscences  on  this  subject,  “A  new  age  knocked  at 
the  door ;  our  souls,  our  hearts  were  opened  to  its  com¬ 
ing.  Saint-Simonism  laid  the  foundation  for  our  con¬ 
victions,  and  constitutes,  even  at  the  present  time,  an 
essential  part  of  them.”  The  young  men  were  inspired 
by  the  two  fundamental  ideas  :  the  calling  of  woman  to 
share  in  the  common  duties,  and  what  they  at  that  time 
called  “the  justification  or  the  honorable  satisfaction  of 
the  flesh.”  An  idea,  says  Herzen,  to  which  people  with 
1  Memoires  de  Herzen,  i.  290  and  following. 


258 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


an  imagination  which  reminds  one  of  the  imagination  of 
lewd  monks  have  wanted  to  give  a  low  and  cynical  inter¬ 
pretation,  but  which,  in  reality,  only  means  dethrone¬ 
ment  of  Christianity,  the  religion  of  beauty  and  life, 
which  supplanted  the  religion  of  asceticism  and  death.1 

From  the  fact  that  some  other  students,  with  whom 
this  ..group  of  young  men  had  no  connection,  late  one 
evening,  at  the  instance  of  a  member  of  the  secret  police, 
had  sung  a  song  in  which  some  abusive  language  could 
be  taken  as  pointing  at  the  Tsar,  Herzen,  his  friend  and 
late  companion-in-arms  the  poet  Ogaref,  and  many  others 
equally  innocent,  were  first  kept  in  prison  for  months, 
and  then  sent  away.  Herzen  was  first  exiled  to  Vyatka, 
on  the  Siberian  frontier,  where  he  happened  to  fall  under 
a  governor  by  the  name  of  Tiufayef,  who  most  resem¬ 
bled  a  wild  and  malignant  beast,  and  afterwards  to  Vla¬ 
dimir.  only  a  day’s  journey  from  Moscow.  On  the  way  to 
his  exile,  he  became  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
Russian  situation  in  its  worst  aspects,  among  other 
things  falling  in  with  a  convoy  of  eight  wagon-loads 
of  small  Jewish  boys,  the  most  of  them  between  eight 
and  ten  years  of  age.  who  were  sent  to  military  colonies,1 
a  third  part  of  them  had  already  died  on  the  way.2 
From  Vladimir,  Herzen  eloped  with  his  young  cousm> 
whom  he  had  loved  for  many  years,  and  whom  they  had 
endeavored  to  prevent  from  marrying  him.  In  her  so¬ 
ciety,  he  passed  the  fifth  and  last  year  of  his  exile,  and 
lived  happily  for  many  years,  until  their  marriage  rela¬ 
tions  came  to  a  tragic  end  in  London.  George  Herwegh 
here,  for  a  short  time,  won  the  heart  of  the  young  Rus¬ 
sian  ;  but  she  died  of  a  broken  heart  in  consequence  o£ 
her  infidelity  to  her  first  and,  in  reality,  her  only  lovt- 

1  Mémoires  de  Herzen,  i.  236. 

2  Comp.  G.  Brandes:  Indtryk  fra  Polen,  p.  67. 


HERZEN'S  DEVELOPMENT. 


259 


A  letter  of  Turgenief  to  Saltykof,  dated  January  19, 
1876,  shows  that  there  exists  an  unprinted  account,  writ¬ 
ten  by  Herzen,  of  the  bitterest  catastrophe  of  his  life. 

On  his  return  to  Moscow,  Herzen  found  the  youth 
filled  with  Hegel’s  philosophy.  When  he  saw  that  he 
was  regarded  as  outside  of  agitations,  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  encyclopædia,  logic,  the  science  of  phenomena, 
æsthetics ;  studied  and  canvassed  them  paragraph  by 
paragraph  ;  at  last,  he  devoured  every  single  Hegelian 
writing  he  could  obtain,  from  the  nearest  disciples  of 
Hegel  to  the  liberal  Hegelian  Arnold  Euge.  Herzen 
interpreted  the  teachings  df  the  master  entirely  in  the 
spirit  of  the  young  Hegelians.  While  others,  as,  for 
instance,  the  great  critic  Byelinski,  Herzen’s  intimate 
friend,  accepted  in  a  purely  conservative  spirit  the  well- 
known  sentence  from  the  preface  to  the  “  Philosophy  of 
the  Eight,”  “  That  which  is  reasonable  is  real,  and  that 
which  is  real  is  reasonable,”  so  that  they  even  found  in 
it  the  justification  of  the  Eussian  absolute  power,  with 
all  the  crimes  which  flourished  in  its  bosom,  Herzen  saw 
in  it  only  the  simple  expression  of  the  principle  of  the 
adequate  cause,  broke  with  Byelinski,  until  he — for  that 
matter  very  soon  —  gave  up  his  quietism,  and,  on  his 
side,  found  in  Hegel’s  philosophy  an  algebra  of  revolu¬ 
tion,  which  freed  the  spirit  by  not  leaving  one  stone 
upon  another  of  the  Christian  world  of  tradition.  And 
when  Ogaref  brought  him  Feuerbach’s  “  Spirit  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,”  on  reading  this  work,  he  felt  himself  at  once 
wholly  emancipated.  And  in  his  first  philosophical 
enthusiasm  he  wrote  the  series  of  articles  which  he 
published  in  1842,  with  the  title,  “Dilettantism  in 
Knowledge,”  by  Iskander  (that  is,  Alexander). 

Shortly  before  Herzen’s  return  from  exile,  Tschaad- 
ayef  had  published  the  celebrated  “Philosophical  Let- 


260 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


ters  ”  about  the  insignificance  of  Russia  to  European 
culture,  its  everlasting  coining  too  late.  To  punish  him 
for  this,  he  was  declared  and  treated  as  insane  by  the 
Tsar.  Byelinski,  “the  Lessing  of  Russia,”  already  far 
gone  in  consumption,  which  carried  him  off  when  only 
thirty-eight  years  old,  now  began  his  impassioned  lit¬ 
erary  campaign  with  the  official  world  and  the  official 
literature.  When  “  The  Annals  of  our  Fatherland,” 
appeared  on  the  25th  of  each  month,  the  whole  cul¬ 
tured  youth  were  in  a  fever  to  get  hold  of  the  thick 
volume.  They  were  continually  asking  during  the  whole 
forenoon,  in  the  cafés,  if  the  number  had  come  ;  as  soon 
as  it  arrived,  they  tore  it  open  with  the  question,  “  Is 
there  anything  of  Byelinski’s  in  it  ?  ”  If  only  one  page 
was  found  of  his,  it  was  devoured  eagerly  and  debated  in 
endless  discussions. 

His  fire,  his  sarcasm,  his  sneers,  his  unmaskings 
enchained  all,  and  people  flocked  together  where  he 
swung  his  whip,  as  if  to  see  an  execution.  Almost  on 
his  death-bed,  he  attacked  his  disciple  Gogol  for  his 
back-sliding.  As  the  disciple  of  the  culture  of  Western 
Europe,  he  cut  down  pedants  and  Slavophiles. 

When  he  died,  his  friends  were  forbidden  to  place  an 
epitaph  at  his  grave.  The  newspapers  were  forbidden  to 
mention  his  name,  and  the  prohibition  has  remained  in 
force  for  full  eighteen  years. 

It  fell  to  Herzen’s  lot  to  carry  Byelinski’s  literary 
purification  and  reformation  into  the  political  arena. 
He  was  admirably  constituted  for  such  a  contest,  which 
was  to  endure  for  many  years.  He  was  not  spindling 
and  weak  like  his  friend,  but  large  and  broad-shouldered, 
a  powerful  frame,  and  not  poor  and  therefore  dependent, 
but  after  his  father’s  death  he  was  in  possession  of  what, 
even  by  Russian  standards,  would  be  regarded  as  a  large 


HERZEN'S  LITERARY  WORK. 


261 


fortune.  Thus,  all  that  was  needed  was  that  Tie  should 
obtain  leave  to  pass  over  the  Russian  frontier,  so  that, 
with  solid  ground  under  his  feet,  he  could  use  his  great 
talent  as  a  writer  in  shaking  up  Russia  in  all  its  joints. 

He  was  the  creator  of  a  public  sentiment  in  the  Rus¬ 
sian  Empire. 

In  Paris,  where  he  first  took  refuge,  he  formed  a 
league  with  the  party  of  the  French  socialists  and  the 
Polish  emigrants.  What  he  felt  when  the  great  storm 
of  insurrection  burst  over  Europe,  and  when  one  popu¬ 
lar  revolt  after  another  was  suppressed,  all  the  promises 
of  kings  and  pope  were  broken,  and  contra-revolutions 
were  victorious  along  the  whole  line,  is  shown  by  his 
two  books,  written  in  the  most  fascinating  style,  “From 
the  Other  Side  of  the  Stream,”  and  “  Letters  from  Italy 
and  France.”  They  were  published  anonymously  in 
1850,  and  first  in  German,  having  been  translated  by 
Frederick  Kapp,  who  subsequently  became  the  well 
known  German-American  historian,  and  who  at  that  time 
was  a  tutor  in  Herzen’s  house.  It  is  sixteen  years  since 
I  read  these  books,  and  they  are  not  now  at  hand,  but 
the  impression  is  as  vivid  now  as  when  I  first  read  them. 
Never  has  manly  political  enthusiasm  found  a  more  ele¬ 
gant  or  more  lucid  expression,  and  never  have  disappoint¬ 
ment  and  contempt  spoken  in  more  energetic  language. 

From  Paris  Herzen  went  to  London,  and  there,  during 
the  Crimean  War,  established  his  liberal  “  Russian 
Press,”  and  published  in  London  from  1857  to  1865,  and 
in  Geneva  from  1865  to  1869,  his  celebrated  weekly  paper, 
Kolokol,  whose  overwhelming  influence  in  Russia  has 
been  previously  spoken  of,  as  well  as  the  manner  in 
which  this  influence  was  destroyed  by  Ivatkof. 

The  same  year  in  which  Alexander  Herzen  went  into 
exile,  he  published  a  novel,  which  is  still  worth  reading, 


262 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


less  for  its  literary  value  than  on  account  of  the  move¬ 
ments  to  which  it  gave  rise  in  Russia.  It  is  the  romance 
“  Who  is  to  Blame  ?  ”  (1847),  an  indirect  attack  on 
marriage  as  an  institution,  dedicated  to  the  author’s 
wife  “with  hearty  devotion.”  The  book  is  written  with¬ 
out  any  regular  plot,  with  a  long-winded  introductory 
historical  sketch,  several  digressions,  and  without  style  ; 
but  the  characters  are  living  as  in  the  better  novels  of 
George  Sand.  The  theme  is  substantially  as  follows  : 
The  peaceful,  happy  marriage  between  the  calm  and  ami¬ 
able  teacher  Kruziferski  and  his  elegant  wife  Liubonka 
is  disturbed  when  the  young,  talented  but  idle  man  of 
the  world,  Beltof,  comes  within  the  sphere  of  these  two 
married  people.  Without  any  guilt  on  the  part  of  either, 
Beltof  and  Liubonka  are  irresistibly  attracted  to  each 
other,  understand  each  other,  need  each  other,  and  can¬ 
not  do  without  each  other.  They  strive  to  conquer  their 
passion,  but  Beltof  tears  himself  away  in  vain ;  he 
drags  himself  off  on  journeys  to  no  purpose,  Liubonka 
wastes  away,  Kruziferski  takes  to  drink  and  is  ruined.1 

The  idea  embodied  in  this  book  grew  luxuriantly, 
since,  in  1863,  the  man  who  may  be  regarded  as  Herzen’s 
great  intellectual  heir,  and  for  a  time  as  inheritor  of  his 
influence,  published  his  celebrated  novel,  “  What  is  to 
be  done  ?  ” 

Nikolai  Gavrilovitch  Tchernuishevski  was  born  in  1829, 
the  son  of  a  pope  in  Saratof  on  the  Volga,  and  was  first 
destined  for  the  clergy,  but  soon  gave  up  theology  for 
the  study  of  ancient  and  modern  languages,  and,  in 
1846,  began  his  career  as  a  philologist  in  the  university 
of  St.  Petersburg.  After  passing  his  examinations,  he 
became  ITofessor  of  Literature  in  the  Cadet.  School  in 

1  Vom  andern  Ufer ;  Briefe  aus  Italien  und  Frankreich,  Hamburg, 
1850,  Wer  ist  Schuld?  Reclam’s  Bibliotliek. 


l'CHER  N  UISHE  VSKI. 


263 


St.  Petersburg,  but  soon  after,  at  the  desire  of  his 
mother,  who  could  not  bear  to  be  separated  from  him, 
he  accepted  a  position  as  teacher  in  the  grammar  school 
in  his  native  town.  Here  he  was  married  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two.  After  his  mother’s  death  in  1853,  he  re¬ 
turned  to  the  capital,  wrote  a  thesis  on  the  relations  of 
art  to  nature,  but  in  his  oral  defence  gave  utterance  to 
such  radical  ideas  that  the  minister  of  education  refused 
him  his  diploma. 

From  1853  to  1862  he  wrote  for  Niekråsof’s  newspaper, 
Sovremennik,  a  large  number  of  articles  and  discus¬ 
sions  of  an  economical,  critical,  and  historical  character, 
which,  from  their  way  of  treating  the  problems,  and  by 
their  ironic,  satirical  tone,  awakened  the  greatest  atten¬ 
tion.  Tchernuishevski  presented  and  criticised  John 
Stuart  Mill’s  “  Political  Economy,”  the  aesthetic  criticism 
of  the  Gogolian  period,  the  party  quarrels  in  France 
during  the  Restoration,  Lessing  and  his  age,  etc.,  treated 
with  the  same  superiority  subjects  of  widely  different 
kinds,  but  had  his  principal  interests  centred  on  the 
solution  of  certain  great  social  problems, — the  arrange¬ 
ment  of  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  the  abolition 
of  serfdom,  the  abrogation  of  all  individual  property  in 
land  for  the  good  of  the  community. 

Everything  that  he  wrote  was  passed  by  the  censor. 
But  in  July,  1862,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  Tchernui¬ 
shevski  was  arrested,  and  kept  in  custody  in  the  Petro- 
Pavlovsk  prison,  on  the  island  of  Neva,  until  May,  1864. 

On  the  24th  of  May,  1864,  about  eight  o’clock  in  the 
morning,  in  a  pouring  rain,  a  great  crowd  of  men  was 
collected  in  St.  Petersburg  around  a  scaffold  with  a  pil¬ 
lory  surrounded  by  soldiers  in  a  hollow  square.  Pres¬ 
ently  the  wagon  which  was  expected  drove  up,  escorted 
by  gendarmes  on  horseback,  and  out  of  it  alighted  first 


264 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


a  general  and  then  a  pale  man,  dressed  as  a  civilian. 
The  latter  ascended  the  scaffold,  where  two  men  with 
red  caps  took  him  by  the  arms,  hung  a  black  plate  over 
his  neck,  on  which  his  sentence  was  written  in  white 
letters.  Then  one  of  the  executioners  took  his  hat  off 
his  head  so  that  he  should  listen  reverently  to  what  was 
to  be  read  to  him. 

It  was  his  indictment.  It  was  long  enough ;  closely 
printed,  it,  fills  over  six  hundred  lines ;  it  took  more 
than  an  hour  to  read.  But  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  legal  document  with  less  foundation  for  its  charges. 

“  Several  circumstances,”  it  says,  “  have  pointed  out 
to  the  government  the  said  Tchernuislievski  as  an  agitator 
dangerous  to  the  State.”  These  circumstances  are : 
first,  an  anonymous  letter  sent  to  the  Third  Section  (the 
secret  police).  This  letter,  which  is  quoted  at  length 
with  all  its  vulgarity  and  stupidity,  calls  upon  the  gov¬ 
ernment  to  free  the  people  from  Tchernuislievski.  In 
the  second  place,  an  intercepted  letter  from  the  exile 
Alexander  Herzen,  in  which  is  found,  “  We  intend  to 
publish  Sovremennik  here  or  in  London  with  Tcher- 
nuishevski.”  For  these  two  things  Tchernuislievski  was 
imprisoned.  Now  follows  in  the  indictment  the  list  of 
the  papers  “  belonging  to  the  case,”  that  is,  a  letter  from 
the  accused  to  his  wife,  in  which  he  says  that  they  both 
belong  to  history,  so  that  their  names  will  be  known  for 
centuries,  and  the  production  of  a  newspaper  article 
from  1853,  which  was  now  in  1862  found  to  be  dan¬ 
gerous. 

In  all  this,  however,  there  is  no  foundation  for  any 
legal  proceedings.  But  while  the  accused  is  in  prison, 
in  March,  1863,  they  were  fortunate  enough  in  the  Third 
Section  to  obtain  possession  of  a  letter  from  a  certain 
Kostomarof  to  one  of  his  friends,  in  which  it  is  said 


TCIIE  It  NUIS  II EY  SKI' S  INDICTMENT.  265 


that  “  Tchernuishevski  had  written  the  appeal  to  the 
serfs.”  As  proof  of  the  truth  of  this  contention,  a  note 
found  in  the  pocket  of  Kostomarof  is  read,  which, 
observe,  was  when  he  had  already  been  a  long  time  in 
prison,  sentenced,  ready  to  be  sent  away  to  exile,  and 
in  which  he  is  asked  to  correct  a  misprint.  The  note  is 
signed  “  Tcher.”  The  secretaries  of  the  Senate,  before 
whom  this  letter  was  laid,  were  not  able,  it  is  true,  to 
find  any  resemblance  to  Tchernuishevski’s  handwriting 
as  a  whole,  even  admitting  that,  when  the  letters  are 
taken  separately,  twelve  of  the  twenty-five  letters  resem¬ 
ble  his  to  a  certain  extent ;  but  the  Senate  in  pleno  found 
the  resemblance  striking.  With  incredible  ease  it  is 
said,  in  the  next  place,  that  a  copy  of  Tchernuishevski’s 
proclamation  to  the  peasants  has  been  found  in  the 
possession  of  Kostomarof,  although  no  original  is  forth¬ 
coming,  and  although  the  style  bears  no  resemblance  to 
that  of  the  great  author.  And,  in  conclusion,  a  letter 
is  read,  full  of  scratches  and  erasures,  which  comes  from 
the  Third  Section,  and  which  is  presumed  to  be  from 
the  accused,  since  it  is  signed  “  Tsch,”  and  directed  to 
one  Alexis  Nikolayevitch,  who  is  presumed  to  be  the 
poet  Pleshcheyef,  whose  Christian  name  has  the  same 
sound.  Tchernuishevski  firmly  denied  having  written 
this  letter,  which,  moreover,  would  have  been  entirely 
innocent  in  any  other  place  than  Russia  and  modern 
Germany.  Pleshcheyef  denied  before  the  court  not  less 
firmly  that  he  had  received  it ;  but  they  were  not 
believed.  It  was  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the  attempt  of 
the  accused  to  stir  up  the  serfs,  and  his  culpability  is 
increased  by  his  obstinate  denial. 

“  As  guilty  of  participation  in  a  conspiracy  for  the 
destruction  of  the  present  political  arrangements,  N.  G 
Tchernuishevski,  thirty -five  years  old,  is  sentenced  to 


266 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


fourteen  years  hard  labor  in  the  mines,  and  then  to 
exile  to  Siberia  for  life.” 

Immediately  after  it  was  announced  to  him  that  the 
Tsar  in  his  mercy  lias  commuted  the  fourteen  years  hard 
labor  to  seven.  Then  he  received  an  order  to  kneel 
down.  They  broke  a  sword  over  his  head,  and  chained 
him  for  some  minutes  to  the  pillory.  A  bouquet  of 
flowers  falls  down  at  his  feet.  The  bouquets  which 
follow  are  caught  in  the  air  b}'  the  police.  He  is 
t  dveu  to  the  wagon,  and  vanishes.  ...  1 

He  vanished,  never  more  to  be  seen  among  those  who 
admired  him,  and  who  were  indebted  to  him  for  the  best 
part  of*  their  intellectual  culture.  He  passed  his  seven 
years  among  the  criminals  in  the  mines  underground, 
then  fifteen  years  more  in  solitary  exile  in  one  of  the 
most  distant  points  of  Siberia,  without  books,  without 
men  with  whom  he  could  exchange  ideas,  cut  off  from 
all  communion  with  Europe.  A  year  or  two  since  they 
at  last  found  the  prisoner  sufficiently  subdued  by  his 
martyrdom  of  more  than  twenty  years.  They  trans¬ 
ferred  him  to  a  milder  place  of  banishment,  and  allowed 
him  to  occupy  himself  in  a  harmless  manner  by  transla¬ 
tions  and  similar  things. 

He  is  now  and  then  visited  there  by  some  faithful 
admirers,  who  dare  to  expose  themselves  to  the  odium 
which  follows  upon  such  visits ;  and  I  know  of  nothing 
more  significant  of  the  contentment  into  which  public 
opinion  has  sunk  in  Russia,  than  the  satisfaction  with 
which  those  who  have  seen  him  express  their  impres¬ 
sions  on  their  return:  “ Tchernuishevski  is  well,”  they 
say  generally ;  “  he  is  not  at  all  broken  down  intel- 

1  L'economie  politique  jugée  par  le  science.  Critique  des  principes 
d’ economic  politique,  de  John  Stuart  Mill  par  N.  Tschernuischevski. 
Bruxelles,  1874,  i.-xxxvi. 


A  VITAL  QUESTION. 


267 


lectually  ;  he  translates  from  the  German .”  It  has  gone 
so  far  in  Russia  that  when  a  genius,  who  was  the  honor 
of  the  nation  and  the  pride  of  the  youth,  after  having 
been  abused  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  with  the  coarsest 
cruelty,  has,  nevertheless,  not  become  an  idiot,  they  then 
do  not  think  much  more  of  what  has  happened ;  they 
feel  entirely  satisfied  with  the  result,  —  feel  about  as  if 
they  had  made  abet  with  the  government,  and,  contrary 
to  all  probability,  had  won  it. 

Even  one  who  is  not  competent  to  judge  of  the  value  of 
Tchernuishevski’s  economical  work  will  read  with  pleas¬ 
ure  his  critical  treatise  on  Mill’s  “Political  Economy.” 
The  urbanity  of  the  tone,  the  crystal  clearness  of  his 
description,  and  the  richness  of  his  pertinent  psycho¬ 
logical  observations,  enchain  an  outsider.  But  the  three- 
volume  novel  of  Tchernuishevski,  wdiich  was  written  in 
prison  (finished  April  4,  1863),  “What  is  to  be  done?” 
has  had  a  far  more  important  influence.1 

It  is  not  that  the  book  is  a  fine  poetical  production, 
nor  even  poetical  at  all  in  the  true  sense  of’  the  word. 
It  is  highly  intellectual  and  liberal,  a  thorough  and  free 
development  of  the  man’s  views  of  life,  so  far  as  he 
could  develop  them  in  a  manuscript  which  must  pass 
under  the  inspection  of  the  prison  authorities  and  of  the 
censor  before  it  could  reach  the  printing-office. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  the  reader,  a  radiant  good 
humor  pervades  the  book,  which  only  towards  the  end 
becomes  long-winded  and  tiresome,  partly  because  every¬ 
thing  must  be  expressed  so  indirectly,  frequently  in  a 
far-fetched  manner,  partly  because  the  poor  prisoner  at 
the  last  felt  far  too  great  need  of  light  and  air  and  free¬ 
dom  and  men. 

1  In  French,  Que  Faire?  In  German,  TFas  Thvn?  (Broekliaus, 
1883).  In  English,  “  A  Vital  Question  ”  (T.  V.  Crowell  &  Co.). 


268 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  work  was  intended  and  was  received  as  a  gospel 
for  the  modern  Russia.  It  was  intended  to  point  the 
way  out  of  the  conflicts  which  are  occasioned  in  one 
direction  by  the  regulation  of  the  sexual  relations,  and 
in  another  direction  by  the  whole  economical  disorder  of 
society.  “  What  is  to  be  done  ?  ”  is  a  sort  of  a  bastard 
between  a  novel  and  a  treatise  on  political  economy  ;  it 
descends  on  the  female  side  from  George  Sand  and  on 
the  male  from  Karl  Marx. 

Books  of  this  kind  have  apparently  been  written 
before.  In  tendency  it  has  a  resemblance  to  the 
“Jacques”  of  George  Sand,  in  its  story  it  also  reminds 
one  strongly  of  a  much  older  romance,  namely  Jean 
Paul  Richter’s  Leben,  Tod  und  Ehrestand  des  Armenadeo- 
katen  Siebenhas.  But  still  there  is  no  book  of  this 
kind  in  the  literature  of  the  world,  and  no  work  in  the 
whole  Russian  literature  is  more  Russian. 

The  argument  can  be  stated  in  a  few  lines:  The  medi¬ 
cal  student  Lopukhof  marries  Viera  Pavlovna  for  love. 
They  live  happily  together  for  a  long  time.  After  the 
lapse  of  some  years  she  falls  in  love  with  his  comrade, 
Kirsånof.  Lopukhdf,  with  whose  notions  it  does  not 
agree  to  stand  in  the  way  of  two  lovers,  apparently  com¬ 
mits  suicide  and  disappears ;  he  travels  under  another 
name  to  America,  returns  home  some  years  later,  marries 
another  woman,  and  continues  to  live  in  friendly  rela¬ 
tions  to  his  former  wife  and  her  husband. 

There  are  many  most  excellently  drawn  subsidiary 
characters,  who  take  part  in  the  story,  who  are  grouped 
around  the  leading  persons.  The  form  of  the  narrative 
is  personal  to  the  highest  degree.  Every  moment  the 
author  addresses  himself  directly  to  the  reader,  humor¬ 
ously  makes  the  ordinary  excitement  of  a  novel  impos¬ 
sible,  by  telling  far  in  advance  everything  which  is  going 


A  TREATISE  ON  SOCIALISM. 


269 


to  happen,  pokes  fun  at  the  reader’s  consternation  at  the 
immorality  of  the  narrator,  telling  him  that  it  is  even 
far  greater  than  it  appears  to  be.  But  in  truth  this  is 
not  at  all  a  story,  but  is  in  all  respects  a  treatise  on 
social  morals.  Much  which  wearies  a  modern  reader, 
the  description  of  Viera’s  sewing  establishment,  where 
every  sewing-girl  shares  in  the  receipts,  and  much  more 
of  the  same  kind,  is  for  Tchernuishevski  only  the  means 
of  proclaiming  that  socialism  which  he  regards  as  right 
and  promising  for  the  future.  He  cannot  proclaim  his 
ideals  directly.  A  careful  reading  will  show  that  all  the 
Russian  ideas  of  progress  and  all  the  Russian  Utopias 
are  contained  in  this  book. 

On  a  hasty  reading  one  understands  nothing  at  all  of 
this.  The  book  was  not  written  for  the  superficial 
reader.  By  an  artistic  circumlocution  the  poor  prisoner 
must  inform  the  reader  of  his  ideas  of  how  the  world  of 
the  future  will  come  to  look.  When  he  cannot  do  it 
any  other  way,  he  lets  his  heroine  fall  asleep  and  tells  us 
her  dreams  in  regular  dream  pictures,  with  symbolical 
meaning  in  great  poetical  visions,  the  description  of 
which  sometimes  fills  over  thirty  pages  in  succession. 

Thus  everything  is  combined  in  this  book  which  is 
most  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Russia:  the  broadly 
constituted  nature,  the  proud  frankness,  and  the  radical 
disposition  to  go  to  the  end  of  the  rope ;  strong  influ¬ 
ences  from  foreign  lands,  and  independent  originality, 
lively  sense  of  reality  down  to  the  dry  prose  and  pene¬ 
trating  fanatical  mysticism. 

When  the  foreigner  in  Russia,  after  repeatedly  asking 
if  this  or  that  person  is  prominent,  gifted,  remarkably 
interesting,  or  the  like,  and  after  continually  receiving 
a  negative  answer,  at  last  demands  impatiently,  “Who, 
then,  in  the  whole  world  is  gifted  ?  ”  then  it  will  happen 


270  IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 

to  him  again  and  again  to  receive  from  the  most  differ¬ 
ent  directions  the  melancholy  answer,  “  Tchernuishevski 
was.” 

He  will  understand  this  answer  when  he  has  read 
attentively  all  that  is  accessible  from  the  pen  of  this 
great  man,  whose  name  they  do  not  even  dare  to  print 
in  Russia. 


October  28,  1818,  there  was  born  in  the  department 
of  Orel,  in  an  old  noble  (originally  Tatar)  family,  the 
man  to  whom,  down  to  the  very  latest  time,  the  cultured 
classes  in  the  German  and  Latin  c  mntries  were  indebted 
for  almost  all  they  knew  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Slavic 
races  of  our  day. 

No  earlier  Russian  author  has  been  read  in  Europe 
like  Ivan  Sergeyevitcli  Turgenief ;  he  is  to  be  regarded 
rather  as  a  cosmopolitan  than  as  a  Russian  author. 

He  opened  up  to  the  European  public  a  new  world  of 
subjects,  but  he  did  not  need  the  collateral  interest  which 
his  work  gained  for  him  thereby ;  for  it  is  the  artist  and 
not  the  describer  of  culture  which  Europe  has  admired 
in  him.  Although  he  has  hardly  been  read  out  of  his 
own  country  in  his  own  language,  he  has  everywhere, 
even  in  those  countries  which  possess  the  most  taste, 
been  placed  on  a  level  with  the  best  authors  of  the  land. 
He  has  been  read  everywhere  in  translations,  which 
necessarily  distort  or  diminish  the  impression  of  his  supe¬ 
riority  ;  but  the  perfection  of  his  originality  asserted 
itself  so  strongly  in  the  various  more  or  less  happy  forms 
in  which  his  books  were  cast  that  any  want  of  delicacy 
and  clearness  was  overlooked.  Great  authors,  as  a  rule, 
work  most  effectively  through  their  style,  because  by 
this  they  come  into  personal  contact  with  the  reader. 
Turgenief  made  a  very  deep  impression,  although  the 
reader  who  was  not  a  Russian  could  appreciate  only  the 

271 


272 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


coarser  qualities  of  his  style,  and  could  scarcely  imagine 
with  what  elegance  he  was  wont  to  express  himself,  and 
would  be  just  as  far  from  understanding  his  allusions  as 
from  being  able  to  compare  his  interpretation  and  de¬ 
scription  of  persons  and  ways  of  thinking  in  Russia  with 
the  reality  from  which  they  were  taken.  Turgenief  con¬ 
quered  in  the  artistic  race,  although  he  was  heavily 
handicapped ;  he  was  triumphant  in  the  great  arena, 
although  he  wielded  a  sword  without  a  point. 

For  the  cultured  people  of  Western  Europe,  he  has 
peopled  the  great  empire  of  the  East  with  human  beings 
of  the  present  time.  Thanks  to  him,  we  know  the  spir¬ 
itual  characteristics  of  its  men  and  women.  Although 
in  the  vigor  of  his  age  he  left  Russia,  never  again  to 
dwell  in  his  native  land,  he  has  never  described  anything 
else  than  the  inhabitants  of  this  country,  and  Germans 
and  Frenchmen  only  as  half  Russianized  or  even  only  in 
contact  with  Russians.  He  only  presents  to  us  beings 
with  whose  peculiarities  he  was  familiar  from  his  youth. 
That  gradually,  during  his  long  exile  and  the  estrange¬ 
ment  which  existed  between  the  Slavophile  and  Euro¬ 
pean  Russians,  it  came  to  be  regarded  as  proper,  in 
certain  Russian  circles,  to  depreciate  his  knowledge  of 
his  fatherland,  and  treat  him  as  a  kind  of  Western 
European,  was  natural.  But,  if  he  had  been  a  degree 
less  cosmopolitan,  he  certainly  would  never  have  made 
his  way  into  the  whole  civilized  world  as  he  has  done. 

He  has  given  pictures  from  the  forest  and  the  steppes, 
from  spring  and  autumn,  from  all  ranks  and  classes  of 
society,  and  all  grades  of  culture,  in  Russia.  He  has 
drawn  the  serf  and  the  princess,  the  peasant  and  the 
proprietor,  and  the  student ;  the  young  girl  who  is  pure 
soul,  endowed  with  the  finest  Slavic  charms,  and  the 
cold,  beautiful,  egotistical  coquette,  who  in  his  hands 


turgenief  artist  and  roet. 


273 


seems  to  be  more  irresponsible  in  her  heartlessness  than 
anywhere  else.  He  has  given  a  rich  psychology  of  a 
whole  human  race,  and  has  given  it  with  a  mind  greatly 
excited,  but  yet  so  that  his  mental  agitations  do  not  in 
any  way  disturb  the  transparent  clearness  of  the  descrip¬ 
tions. 

Of  all  the  prose  writers  of  Russia,  Turgenief  is  the 
greatest  artist.  Possibly,  it  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
he  is  the  one  of  those  who  has  lived  most  in  foreign 
lands  ;  for  if  his  long  residence  in  France  has  not  in¬ 
creased  the  stock  of  poetry  which  he  brought  with  him 
from  his  home,  yet  he  lias  plainly  learned  there  the  art 
of  setting  his  pictures  in  frame  and  glass. 

A  broad,  deep  wave  of  melancholy  flows  through 
Turgeuief’s  thoughts,  and  therefore  also  through  his 
books.  However  sober  and  impersonal  his  style  is,  and 
although  he  hardly  ever  inserts  poems  in  his  novels 
and  romances,  still  his  general  narrative  makes  a  lyrical 
impression.  There  is  so  much  feeling  condensed  in 
them,  and  this  feeling  is  invariably  sadness,  —  a  peculiar, 
wonderful  sadness  without  a  touch  of  sentimentality. 
Turgenief  never  expresses  himself  wholly  emotionally ; 
he  works  with  restrained  emotion  ;  but  no  Western  Euro¬ 
pean  is  sad  as  he  is.  The  great  melancholy  authors  of  the 
Latin  races,  like  Leopardi  or  Flaubert,  have  harsh,  firm 
outlines  in  their  style  ;  the  German  sadness  is  glaringly 
humorous  or  pathetic  or  sentimental.  The  melancholy 
of  Turgenief  is,  in  its  general  form,  that  of  the  Slavic 
races  in  their  weakness  and  sorrow,  which  comes  in  a 
direct  line  from  the  melancholy  in  the  Slavic  popular 
ballads. 

All  the  later  Russian  poets  of  rank  are  melancholy. 
But  with  Turgenief  it  is  the  melancholy  of  the  thinker 
who  has  understood  that  all  the  ideals  of  the  human 


274 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA . 


race  —  justice,  reason,  supreme  goodness,  happiness  — 
are  a  matter  of  indifference  to  nature,  and  never  assert 
themselves  by  their  own  spiritual  power.  In  “  Senilia,” 
he  has  represented  Nature  as  a  woman,  sitting  clad  in 
wide  green  kirtle,  in  the  middle  of  a  hall  in  the  depths 
of  the  earth,  lost  in  meditation. 

“‘Oh,  our  common  mother  !’  he  asks,  ‘what  art  thou 
thinking  of?  Is  it  on  the  future  fate  of  the  human 
race  ?  Is  it  on  the  necessary  conditions  for  its  reach¬ 
ing  the  highest  possible  perfection,  the  greatest  possible 
happiness  ?  ’ 

“  The  woman  slowly  turns  her  dark,  piercing,  dreadful 
eyes  towards  me ;  her  lips  half  opened  and  I  heard  a 
voice  which  rang  as  when  iron  comes  in  contact  with 
iron. 

“  ‘  I  am  thinking  how  I  can  give  the  muscles  of  the 
flea  greater  power  so  that  it  can  more  easily  escape 
from  the  persecutions  of  its  enemies.  There  is  no  equi¬ 
librium  between  the  attack  and  defence :  it  must  be 
restored.’ 

“  ‘  What !  ’  stammered  I,  ‘  is  it  that  you  are  thinking 
of  ?  But  we,  the  human  race,  are  we  not  your  chil¬ 
dren  ?  ’ 

“  She  wrinkled  her  eyebrows  imperceptibly. 

“ 1  All  animals  are  my  children,’  said  she ;  ‘  I  care 
equally  for  them  all,  and  I  exterminate  them  all  in  the 
same  manner.’  ” 

Here  you  have  his  character  of  melancholy.  When 
Gogol  is  melancholy,  it  is  because  he  is  indignant ;  when 
Dostoyevski  is  so,  it  depends  upon  the  fact  that  he  is 
dissolved  in  sympathy  with  the  ignorant  and  the  obscure, 
with  the  saint-like,  noble,  and  pure  of  heart,  and  almost 
even  more  with  sinners  both  male  and  female;  Tolstoi’s 
melancholy  has  its  root  in  his  religious  fatalism.  Tur- 
genief  alone  is  a  philosopher. 


HIS  FREEDOM  FROM  MYSTICISM. 


275 


It  will  also  be  found  that  the  other  great  poet#  have 
had  a  turning-point  in  their  lives  when  they  have  been 
seized  by  a  religious  excitement  which  has  given  a  new 
stamp  to  their  career,  according  to  their  own  interpreta¬ 
tion  a  new  consecration  and  a  new  earnestness,  but 
which  also  operates  greatly  to  hamper  and  diminish 
their  poetic  descriptive  powers,  nay,  generally  a  little 
sooner  or  later  it  entirely  destroys  their  poetic  gifts. 
This  turning-point  comes  in  some  cases  from  an  inde¬ 
pendent  conversion,  and  in  others  when  they  are  filled 
with  a  national  or  a  national  religious  mysticism.  The 
disposition  to  such  mysticism  makes  its  appearance  in 
this  century  as  a  common  Slavic  trait.  It  attacked  in 
the  Polish  literature,  in  the  forties,  TVIickiewicz,  Slowacki, 
Krasinski,  Zaleski,  and  others  when  Towianski  and  other 
dreamers  made  their  influence  felt.  It  has  prevailed 
in  Russian  literature,  in  different  forms,  with  men  of  so 
great  ability  as  Gogol  and  Dostoyevski,  and  manifests 
itself,  last  of  all,  with  Tolstoi  —  as  it  would  seem,  under 
the  influence  of  Zhutayef. 

Only  for  Turgenief,  with  his  quiet  contemplation, 
even  religious  enthusiasm  is  a  theme  like  any  other, 
although  he,  too,  in  “Clara  Mi  itch  ”  and  “The  Song 
of  Conquering  Love,”  pays  h  s  tribute  to  the  mystical, 
lie  treats  religious  enthusiasm  without  losing  his  equi¬ 
librium.  We  recall,  for  in-tance,  his  Sophie  Vladi¬ 
mirovna  from  “  A  Strange  Story,”  the  j'oung  girl  of 
good  family,  who  accompanies  a  wandering  saint  out 
into  the  wide  world. 

His  melancholy,  therefore,  is  less  religious  than  philo¬ 
sophical  ;  but  it  is  that  of  the  patriot  who  has  become  a 
pessimist.  In  spite  of  all  his  seeming  cosmopolitanism, 
he  was  a  patriot,  but  a  patriot  who  mourned  over  his 
fatherland  and  despaired  of  it.  He  was  attacked  for 


276 


IMPRESSIONS  UF  RUSSIA. 


this.  Dostoyevski  tried  to  make  him  ridiculous  in  the 
figure  of  Karmasinof  in  “  The  Possessed.”  He  did  not, 
indeed,  lack  confidence  in  the  future  of  his  fatherland ; 
he  admired  its  language  and  certain  parts  of  its  litera¬ 
ture  so  much  that  he  inferred  therefrom  what  abilities 
the  people,  must  possess  who  had  produced  such  results. 
But  he  did  not  share  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  more  sim¬ 
ple  and  ignorant  countrymen  for  the  Russian  people  as 
such.  He  did  not  find  their  past  history  great. 

Turgenief  somewhere  describes  his  dejection  when  at 
one  of  the  great  world’s  exhibitions  he  got  an  exact 
perception  of  how  insignificant  Russia’s  contribution 
was  to  industrial  inventions,  and  he  added  bitterly, 
“  We  have  invented  nothing  but  the  knout.”  His 
career  as  an  author  shows  that  the  history  of  the  more 
recent  development  of  his  country  was  far  from  inspiring 
him  with  confidence. 

Ivan  Turgenief  lost  his  father  early  (1834),  Col.  Sergei 
Nikolayevitch  (of  that  Turgenief  family  which  had 
already  given  two  distinguished  men  to  Russia),  and 
suffered  from  the  imperious  and  cold-hearted  rule  of 
his  mother.  But  he  was  brought  up  in  country  quiet, 
on  the  family  estate  Spasskoye,  and  at  an  early  age  felt 
the  most  vital  love  for  nature  as  well  as  the  most  pas¬ 
sionate  hatred  to  serfdom,  whose  unhappy  results  were 
constantly  before  him. 

He  studied  first  at  the  University  of  Moscow  and 
then  at  that  of  St.  Petersburg,  travelled  in  1838  to 
Germany  and  like  Katkof  and  Bakunin  listened  to  lec- 
ures  on  philosophy  and  history  at  the  University  of 
Berlin  (by  Michelet,  Werder,  Ranke,  and  others).  After 
several  years’  residence  in  foreign  lands  he  returned 
home  as  a  supporter  of  Western  European  liberal 
thought,  was  given  a  position  in  the  department  of 


“RECOLLECTIONS  OF  A  HUNTSMAN.” 


277 


the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  but  retired  from  the  office 
at  the  end  of  a  year,  to  live  the  free  life  of  a  Russian 
landed  proprietor  and  huntsman. 

He  published  his  first  hunting  stories  in  1847 ;  then 
followed  from  1847  to  1851  the  others,  which  in  1852  ap¬ 
peared  collected  as  “  Recollections  of  a  Huntsman,”  and 
created  an  epoch-making  sensation.  He  at  first  began 
with  things  in  verse  like  Byronisms  and  romanticisms, 
unsuccessful  and  without  originality.  It  was  in  this 
first  period  that  Alexander  Herzen,  as  has  been  told  me 
by  an  ear -witness,  called  him  so  affected  that  he  could 
not  eat  without  affectation.  Byelinski  tore  him  loose 
from  Byron,  Heine,  and  the  romanticists,  and  brought 
him  into  the  right  path. 

He  expressed  what  he  knew  thoroughly :  Russian 
nature  and  the  life  of  the  Russian  people,  and  gave 
his  hatred  of  serfdom  expression  in  the  forms  which 
the  censor  would  allow.  This  certainly  had  a  beneficial 
effect  on  his  talent,  —  developed,  necessarily,  everything 
that  was  pre-eminent,  aristocratic,  and  discreet  in  it.  If 
he  sometimes,  in  his  early  youth,  had  an  inclination  to 
the  pathetic,  to  declamation,  to  glaring  effects,  —  pro¬ 
nounced  it  could  have  been  under  no  circumstances,  — 
then  the  relation  to  the  censor  must  have  suppressed  it. 
To  awaken  a  sympathy  for  the  serfs,  to  show  the  lawless¬ 
ness  in  which  they  passed  their  lives,  and  give  pictures 
of  the  roughness  which  abused  them  even  to  death, — 
and  that  without  making  use  of  the  whip  or  knout,  —  he 
relates  incidents  in  his  life  as  a  sportsman,  visits  to  the 
landed  proprietors  or  to  the  physicians,  and  among  these, 
now  and  then,  little  stories  :  of  the  miller’s  wife  who,  as 
a  girl,  had  been  guilty  of  a  black  ingratitude  in  wishing 
to  marry,  although  her  angelic  mistress  could  not  endure 
married  servants,  and  who,  when  she  would  not  give  up 


278 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


her  lover,  was  punished  by  a  forced  marriage  to  another, 
after  having  seen  her  Petruchkha  put  into  the  army.  Or 
there  is  the  story  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  but  muscular 
man-servant  Gerassim,  whose  sweetheart  his  gracious 
mistress  married  to  a  drunkard  for  her  own  amusement, 
and  who  was  compelled  to  drown  his  dog,  a  little,  ema¬ 
ciated  puppy,  Mumu,  —  his  last  consolation  and  sole 
company  in  the  world,  — because  sometimes  his  barking 
irritated  his  mistress  when,  after  too  great  indulgence  at 
her  meals,  she  was  lying  sleepless. 

Both  stories  are  told  without  comment,  with  no  criti¬ 
cism  of  the  events  ;  the  hatred  of  brutality  which  was 
manifested  is  expressed  only  in  irony,  and  this  irony, 
again,  disappears  in  the  pervading  sadness. 

What  makes  Turgenief’s  vein  so  rich  and  peculiar  is 
that  he  is  at  once  a  pessimist  and  a  philanthropist ;  that 
he  loved  the  race  of  which  he  thought  so  poorly  and 
esteemed  so  lightly. 

But  he  had  seen  altogether  too  much  go  wrong  and 
miscarry  in  Russia  to  be  able  to  narrate  any  other  inci¬ 
dents  than  those  with  unhappy  or  sad  results.  To  him, 
a  love  story  is  not  genuine  Russian  if  it  does  not  have  an 
unhappy  issue  in  consequence  of  the  inconstancy  of  the 
man  or  the  coldness  of  the  woman.  An  undertaking 
does  not  seem  to  him  to  be  genuine  Russian  unless  it 
is  beyond  the  capacity  of  him  who  attempts  it,  and  falls 
through  in  consequence  of  the  insusceptibility  of  those 
for  whose  sake  it  was  to  be  carried  through.  But  still 
he  cannot  refrain  from  dwelling  again  and  again  on  vacil¬ 
lating  love  and  fruitless  struggles  in  Russia.  For  him, 
the  land  of  Russia,  where  everything  comes  to  grief,  is  a 
land  of  general  shipwreck.  And  his  chief  emotion  is  one 
which  awakens  and  is  mingled  with  pain  in  the  spectator 
of  a  shipwreck,  in  which  the  latter  must  give  the  suf- 


niS  ARTISTIC  SUPERIORITY. 


279 


ferers  themselves  the  greatest  part  of  the  blame.  There 
is  a  strong  and  quiet  emotion  which  is  always  softened  in 
its  expression.  It  is  seldom  that  a  great  and  productive 
author  has  made  so  little  noise  as  he. 

There  is  something  aristocratic  in  this  noble  and  sim¬ 
ple  attitude.  It  is  not  that,  like  Lord  Byron  or  Prince 
Ptickler,  he  has  impressed  the  marks  of  aristocracy  upon 
his  works  by  any  external  stamp.  But  the  impression 
forces  itself  upon  us  that  the  author  has  inherited  his 
intellectual  refinement,  and  has  always  lived  in  the  best 
society.  He  was  a  man  of  the  world,  and  we  feel  behind 
his  works  the  experience  in  life  of  a  man  of  the  world, 
which  the  German  authors  generally  lack.  But  this  ex¬ 
perience  has  neither  made  him  cynical,  like  so  many 
French  authors,  nor  given  to  moralizing,  like  so  many 
English.  Although  he  "^las  never  shown  any  lack  of 
good  breeding  in  his  style,  still  his  tone  is  not  the  tone 
of  the  world.  Even  his  contempt  is  not  a  cold  contempt. 
There  is  always  a  soul  in  his  voice. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  briefly  and  precisely  what  it  is 
which  makes  Turgenief  an  artist  of  the  first  rank.  We 
might  almost  say  that  it  is  because  his  style  is  so  gen¬ 
uine.  But  even  this  word  needs  an  explanation.  The 
fact  that  he  possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  quality 
of  a  true  poet,  of  being  able  to  create  men  who  live, 
is  not  all.  What  nukes  his  artistic  superiority  so 
perceptible  is  the  harmony  which  the  reader  traces  be¬ 
tween  the  author’s  conception  of  the  person  who  is 
described,  his  opinion  of  him,  and  the  impression  which 
is  made  upon  the  reader  by  that  person. 

The  relation  of  the  author  to  his  own  creations  is  such 
that  every  weakness  which  he  has  as  an  artist  or  as  a 
man  must  here  be  exposed  to  the  light.  The  author 


280 


IM PR ESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


may  have  many  and  rare  gifts,  but  if  he  calls  upon 
us  to  admire  that  which  is  not  worthy  of  admiration, 
or  if  he  would  extort  from  us  admiration  for  a  man, 
or  sympathy  with  a  woman,  or  enthusiasm  for  an  act, 
without  our  feeling  that  there  is  any  occasion  for  those 
sentiments,  then  he  has  injured  and  weakened  himself. 
When  the  author  of  a  novel,  whose  company  we  have 
kept  for  a  long  time  with  pleasure,  suddenly  shows  him¬ 
self  less  critical  or  more  emotional  or  morally  more  lax 
than  we  are,  then  his  descriptions  lose  their  point  for  us. 
If  he  allows  a  person  to  appear  as  irresistibly  winning, 
without  our  finding  him  fascinating  ;  if  he  draws  a  man 
as  more  gifted  or  even  more  witty  than  he  seems  to  us  to 
be  ;  if  he  explains  his  conduct  by  a  magnanimity  we 
have  never  met  with,  and  in  this  case  do  not  believe  in  ; 
if  he  defies  us  by  arbitrary,  immature  judgments,  or  dis¬ 
turbs  us  by  coldness,  or  irritates  us  by  moralizing  :  then 
there  steals  in  upon  the  reader  more  and  more  a  feeling 
of  disappointing  art.  It  is  as  if  you  heard  a  false  note  ; 
and  even  if  the  music  is  afterwards  correct,  the  disagree¬ 
able  impression  lingers  in  the  mind.  What  reader  of 
Balzac,  or  Dickens,  or  Auerbach  —  to  speak  only  of  the 
great  dead  —  has  not  experienced  this  disagreeable  im¬ 
pression  !  When  Balzac  becomes  enthusiastic  in  a  vul¬ 
gar  manner,  or  Dickens  childishly  pathetic,  or  Auerbach 
affectedly  simple,  the  reader  feels  that  he  is  in  the 
presence  of  the  untrue,  the  abortive,  and  is  taken 
aback.  Nothing  abortive  is  ever  met  with  in  Turgenief. 

The  subjects  he  has  selected  are  all  the  most  difficult. 
He  refuses  to  be  interested  in  romantic  characters  and 
marvellous  adventures,  and  he  no  less  refuses  the  attrac¬ 
tions  of  impurity.  There  seldom  or  never  happens  any¬ 
thing  unusual  in  his  books  —  a  catastrophe  like  the 
falling-down  of  a  house  at  the  close  of  the  “  King  Lear 


A  CORRESPONDENCE. 


281 


of  the  Steppe  ”  is  purely  exceptional  —  and  although  he 
does  not  go  out  of  his  way  on  account  of  low  and  vile 
characters,  or  of  incidents  which  no  English  novelist 
would  relate,  yet  he  does  not  dwell  upon  the  obscene, 
as  those  authors  who  once  for  all  have  disregarded  con¬ 
ventionality  are  so  often  tempted  to  do.  As  an  artist 
he  was  a  decided  realist,  but  a  modest  realist. 

His  chief  domain  as  a  narrator  is  the  poor,  the  weak, 
the  inconstant  and  untrustworthy,  the  superfluous  and 
the  abandoned. 

He  does  not,  like  Dostoyevski,  describe  the  misfortune 
which  is  externally  palpable,  nor  the  poverty,  the  rough¬ 
ness,  the  corruption,  the  crime,  nor,  above  all,  the  mis¬ 
fortune,  which  can  be  seen  at  a  distance.  He  describes 
the  misfortune  which  avoids  publicity,  and  he  is  espe¬ 
cially  the  author  for  those  who  have  submitted  to  their 
fate.  He  has  pictured  the  inner  life  of  reticent  sorrow, 
—  the  still-life  of  the  unfortunate,  so  to  speak. 

For  instance  read  “  A  Correspondence.”  It  is  a  young 
girl  with  whom  we  gradually  become  acquainted,  who 
has  lived  isolated,  misunderstood,  despised  by  stupid 
associates  in  a  little  country  village,  and  who  is  on  the 
point  of  becoming  an  old  maid.  She  has  already  re¬ 
signed  herself  to  it,  deserted  as  she  has  been  by  her  lover. 
She  has  given  up  her  demands  on  life,  and  is  trying  only 
for  peace  and  is  on  the  way  to  success.  Then  begins  — 
from  an  impulse  of  communicativeness,  of  idleness,  of 
longing,  of  sympathy  —  a  friend  of  her  younger  days 
to  write  to  her.  At  first  she  answers  declining  the  cor¬ 
respondence  ;  after  the  receipt  of  other  epistles  she 
allows  permission  for  him  to  continue  to  be  extorted 
from  her.  He  writes,  and  she  replies,  no  longer  briefly, 
but  in  a  long,  eloquent  letter.  In  this  manner  the  feel¬ 
ing  of  friendship  grows  up  in  her  heart,  and  in  no  very 


282 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


long  time  occupies  it  and  passes  over  into  love.  They 
are  both  in  love  for  one  short  moment.  He  longs  for 
and  worships  her,  the  day  of  his  starting  and  arrival  is 
already  fixed; — then  the  correspondence  is  broken  off, 
he  allows  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  a  ballet  girl, 
over  whose  vulgar  graces  he  forgets  everything,  and  she 
sinks  anew,  but  this  time  more  deeply  wounded,  back  to 
her  dreadful  solitary  life. 

The  highly  elaborated  novel  “An  Unfortunate  Woman” 
treats  of  the  life  of  another  young  girl,  whose  misfor¬ 
tune  is  equally  quiet  and  uneventful.  Her  earliest 
remembrance  is  that  her  mother,  a  Jewess,  the  daughter 
of  a  foreign  painter,  and  she  herself  sat  daily  at  the 
table  of  the  landed  proprietor  Kaltovskoi.  Kaltovskoi 
is  a  grand  old  bugbear,  who  smelt  horribly  of  ambergris, 
continually  took  snuff  out  of  a  gold  snuff-box,  and  in¬ 
spires  the  child  with  no  other  feeling  than  fear,  even 
when  he  holds  out  his  hard,  dry  hand,  with  lace  cuffs, 
for  her  to  kiss.  At  the  same  time  that  the  mother  is 
made  to  marry  the  disgusting  steward  Ratch,  the  child 
learns  that  the  landed  proprietor  is  her  father.  The 
father  never  speaks  a  loving  word  to  her,  and  not  even 
once  a  kindly  one ;  he  accepts  her  with  stiff  grandeur,  as 
his  little  reader.  The  mother  dies.  The  old,  heartless 
landed  proprietor  dies  some  years  later.  His  brother 
and  heir,  Semyon  Matveitch,  gives  Susannah  some  money, 
which  her  stepfather  immediately  appropriates.  Hav¬ 
ing  grown  up,  her  heart  speaks  for  the  first  time ;  she, 
falls  deeply  in  love  with  Semyon’s  son,  her  cousin 
Mikhail,  an  excellent  young  officer,  who  loves  her  as  she 
deserves  to  be  loved.  But  no  sooner  is  the  intimacy  of 
the  two  discovered  than  they  are  ruthlessly  separated. 
Mikhail  is  sent  away  and  dies  immediately  after.  The 
father,  Semyon,  pursues  his  young  niece  with  dishonor- 


“THE  DIARY  OF  A  SUPERFLUOUS  MAN.”  283 

able  advances  and  proposals.  At  last  he  dies  also  and 
leaves  her  an  annuity,  which  her  stepfather  receives. 
Three  years  —  six,  seven  years  pass  .  .  .  time  moves  on. 
She  sees  it  gliding  away  indifferently  and  with  it  life. 
Then  a  new  ray  of  light  falls  into  her  existence ;  a  fine 
young  man,  whom  she  has  won,  also  wins  her  interest ; 
then  he  hears  from  her  associates,  from  her  own  depraved 
step-brother  even,  the  most  scurvy  calumnies  in  regard 
to  her  past  history,  and  draws  back.  She  takes  poison. 

Or  read  “The  Diary  of  a  Superfluous  Man.”  The 
title  explains  the  contents.  It  is  a  man  who  is  mortally 
ill,  and  who  occupies  his  last  days  in  recording  the  chain 
of  common  events  which  has  made  up  his  useless  life. 
He  has  from  first  to  last  been  in  the  way  in  the  world. 
Once  he  fell  in  love,  but  only  to  suffer  all  the  pangs  of 
jealousy,  and  experience  all  its  humiliations.  Elizabeth 
did  not  love  him,  but  a  dazzling  young  prince  from 
St.  Petersburg,  who  is  stopping  for  a  short  time  in  the 
provincial  town  in  which  she  dwells.  He  challenges  the 
prince,  who  spares  him  in  the  duel,  succeeds  only  in 
passing  for  a  bad  man,  and  appearing  to  the  object  of 
his  affections  as  a  murderer.  Even  when  the  prince 
seduces  and  abandons  Elizabeth,  and  when,  nevertheless, 
he  is  ready  again  to  ask  for  her  hand,  her  aversion  to 
him  is  unchanged.  She  gives  her  hand  to  another  not 
less  magnanimous  friend,  who  has  got  the  start  of  the 
unhappy  lover,  and  who  thus  even  on  this  occasion 
makes  him  a  superfluity.  Here  as  always  the  poor 
fellow  has  been  the  fifth  wheel  to  the  coach.  And  yet 
we  feel,  through  every  line,  how  full  of  feeling,  how 
nobly  endowed  and  good  he  is.  The  last  pages  of  the 
diary  contain  the  farewell  to  life  of  the  consumptive, 
who  has  been  given  up  by  his  physician. 

“  Jacob  Passinkof  ”  is  another  story  of  the  same  kind. 


284 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Passinkof  belongs  to  the  tj^pe  of  Russian  personalities 
which  Turgenief  describes  with  partiality.  He  is  not 
specially  noble  in  his  exterior,  tall,  thin,  round-shoul¬ 
dered,  and  his  nose  even  a  little  red.  But  his  forehead 
is  magnificent,  his  voice  mild  and  subdued,  and,  as  it 
is  significantly  enough  said  of  him,  “  In  his  mouth 
the  words  goodness,  truth,  life,  knowledge,  love  never 
sound  like  phrases,  however  enthusiastically  he  utters 
them.”  In  his  story  Turgenief’s  fundamental  theme 
comes  out  in  a  double  form.  He  is  in  love  with  a  beau¬ 
tiful  young  girl,  who  does  not  give  him  a  thought. 
When  he  dies,  forgotten  and  alone  in  an  obscure  corner 
of  Siberia,  he  still  has  some  mementos  of  her  on  his 
breast.  He  needed  some  faults,  some  selfishness,  some 
levity,  to  win  her  favor.  In  the  mean  time,  as  a  requital, 
\vithout  his  knowing  it,  he  was  silently  loved  by  her  plain, 
father  ugly  and  awkward  sister,  who  has  always  kept  him 
faithfully  in  mind,  and  who  for  his  sake  had  never  been 
willing  to  marry. 

Turgenief’s  story,  written  somewhat  late  in  life,  “  The 
Living  Relic,”  is  certainly  the  best  specimen  of  these 
monographs  of  misfortune,  which  are  just  as  fine  and 
perfect  as  they  are  simple.  It  is  almost  an  unadorned 
soliloquy  ;  it  is  only  the  account  of  her  life  which  a 
young,  formerly  beautiful  Russian  peasant  girl,  now 
worn  to  a  skeleton,  gives  to  the  author.  He  finds  her 
lying  on  her  back,  after  a  fateful  fall,  and  she  has  been 
lying  thus  for  nearly  seven  years.  Her  head  is  emaci¬ 
ated,  sallow  as  bronze  ;  her  nose  sharp  and  pointed  as  a 
knife-blade  ;  her  lips  sunken  in,  only  the  teeth  and  the 
white  of  her  eyes  have  any  lustre  ;  some  tufts  of  thin, 
flaxen  yellow  hair  fall  down  over  her  forehead.  Outside 
of  the  bed-clothing  were  lying  a  pair  of  very  small 
hands  whose  fingers,  like  little  dark  brown  pins,  move 


THE  LIVING  RELIC. 


285 


slowly  to  and  fro.  And  once  she  was  the  most  plump, 
most  graceful,  gayest,  and  most  beautiful  girl  in  the 
country,  always  ready  for  laughter,  song,  and  dance. 
She  tells  her  fate,  how  after  her  accident  she  had  be¬ 
come  shrunken,  dark-colored,  had  lost  the  power  of 
standing  and  walking,  appetite  for  eating  and  drinking ; 
how  they  burnt  her  on  the  back  with  red-hot  iron,  and 
put  her  into  solid  ice,  all  to  no  effect.  And  she  tells  all 
this  in  an  almost  cheerful  manner,  without  any  attempt 
to  excite  pity.  Her  lover  has  left  her,  and  married 
another.  He  is,  she  says,  happy  in  his  marriage,  thank 
God.  She  finds  his  act  natural  and  right.  She  is  thank¬ 
ful  to  the  people  who  take  care  of  her,  especially  to  a 
little  girl  who  brings  her  flowers  ;  she  is  not  dull,  does 
aot  complain :  there  are  others  who  are  more  unhappy 
;han  she  is,  —  the  blind  or  the  deaf  and  dumb  ;  she  sees 
wonderfully  well,  and  hears  everything,  —  hears  when 
a  mole  is  digging  under  ground,  and  smells  every  fra¬ 
grance,  even  the  weakest,  —  the  flowers  of  the  buck¬ 
wheat,  far  out  in  the  fields,  and  the  linden  trees  far 
down  in  the  garden.  The  great  events  in  her  existence 
are  when  a  hen  or  a  sparrow  or  a  butterfly  comes  in  to 
her  through  a  door  or  window.  She  has  great  pleasure 
in  the  recollection  of  a  visit  a  hare  made  to  her  one 
day.  And  Lukeria  reminds  Turgenief  of  the  time  when 
she  sang  ballads.  She  still  sings  them  sometimes,  she 
tells  him.  The  thought  that  this  scarcely  living  being 
is  preparing  to  sing  inspires  him  with  involuntary  horror ; 
and,  trembling  like  a  thread  of  light  smoke,  her  poor 
little  voice  comes  out  in  almost  inaudible  but  clear  and 
pure  tones.  She  tells  him  the  wonderful  dreams  she  has 
had  (unfortunately  she  sleeps  but  little),  —  one  about 
Jesus,  who  came  to  meet  her,  and  held  out  his  hand  to 
her ;  one  about  a  woman  whom  she  met,  and  who  was 


286 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


her  death,  but  who  went  past  her,  and,  while  pitying  her, 
complained  that  she  could  not  take  her  with  her.  She 
contradicts  the  author  when  he  expresses  his  admiration 
of  her  patience.  What  is  there  to  admire  !  What  has 
she  done !  No,  the  maiden  who,  in  a  distant  country, 
with  a  great  sword  drove  the  enemy  out  into  the  sea, 
and  then  said,  “  Burn  me  now,  for  it  was  my  promise 
that  I  would  die  at  the  stake  for  my  people  !  ”  —  that 
maiden  performed  a  wonderful  act.  As  he  goes  away, 
Lukeria  begs  him  to  say  a  word  for  the  peasants  there 
in  the  village  at  her  mother’s,  so  that  they  might  obtain 
a  little  bit  of  an  abatement  in  the  rent.  She  needs 
nothing  herself,  and  has  nothing  to  wish  for  in  her  own 
behalf. 

Still  it  is  not  these  minor  works  which  have  made 
Turgenief’s  name  renowned  throughout  the  world.  It 
is  his  greater  novels,  his  few  romances,  masterpieces, 
like  “On  the  Eve”  (Helen),  “Rudin,”  “Spring  Floods,” 
“Smoke,”  “Fathers  and  Sons,”  and  “Virgin  Soil.”  No 
more  subtile  psychology  is  to  be  found  in  European 
literature,  no  more  perfect  delineation  of  character,  and, 
what  is  almost  unseen  in  the  history  of  modern  author¬ 
ship,  the  figures  of  the  men  and  women  are  here  equally 
perfect. 

In  order  fully  to  understand  these  best  works  of  Tur- 
genief,  it  is  necessary  to  have  some  knowledge  of  his 
life  and  character. 

Two  decisive  events  occurred  in  his  life.  The  first  is 
his  imprisonment  and  subsequent  banishment  to  his 
estate  in  1842.  The  second  is  his  acquaintance  with 
Mme.  Pauline  Viardot,  née  Garcia. 

In  the  government  circles  a  suspicious  watch  was  kept 
on  Turgenief,  on  account  of  his  attacks  on  serfdom. 
Then,  when  Gogol  died,  and  Turgenief,  in  a  newspaper 


HIS  EXILE  — MME.  VIAKDOT. 


287 


article  (in  which  the  censor  in  Moscow  found  nothing  to 
strike  out),  eulogized  the  deceased  with  warm  words,  they 
at  once  seized  upon  the  opportunity  to  give  him  a  blow. 
They  found  —  Heaven  knows  how  —  disobedience  to¬ 
wards  the  Tsar  in  the  said  article,  and  on  “the  com¬ 
mand  of  the  highest  of  all  ”  he  was  thrown  into  prison 
in  St.  Petersburg.  Among  his  letters  is  to  be  found  a 
communication  which  he  wrote  to  the  heir-apparent 
(Alexander)  to  prove  his  innocence.  After  having 
passed  a  month  in  prison,  which  the  delicate  condition 
of  his  health  made  doubly  painful  to  him,  he  was  exiled 
to  his  estate  Spasskoye,  where  he  was  obliged  to  remain 
for  several  years.  It  is  plainly  enough  this  event  which 
after  his  pardon  led  him  to  take  up  his  permanent  resi¬ 
dence  outside  of  his  native  land. 

The  acquaintance  with  Mine.  Yiardot  imprisoned  the 
author  near  to  her  for  all  the  rest  of  his  life  —  far  more 
than  half.  She  was  born  in  Paris  in  1821  and  had  made 
extensive  artistic  tours  in  America  and  Europe  with  her 
parents,  first  as  a  pianist  and  then  as  a  vocalist.  Her 
first  appearance  in  Paris,  which  happened  at  the  same 
time  as  Rachel’s,  is  commemorated  in  verse  by  Alfred 
de  Musset.  From  1840  she  was  the  wife  of  the  author 
Louis  Viardot.  As  early  as  1847,  Turgenief  accompanied 
the  married  couple  to  Berlin  and  then  to  Paris.  From 
1856  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  member  of  the  Viardot 
family,  and  the  influence  which  the  mistress  of  the 
house  exerted  upon  the  author  was  great,  and,  so  far  as 
can  be  perceived,  only  for  good.  In  1847,  when  his 
despotic  mother  refused  to  send  him  any  money  for  his 
support,  Mine.  Viardot  assisted  him  out  of  her  own 
purse,  and  it  was  therefore  only  just  that  Turgenief  in 
his  will  should  have  made  her  his  residuary  legatee,  — 
which,  however,  has  given  rise  to  many  fiendish  com¬ 
ments  on  the  part  of  Russians. 


288 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Turgenief’s  relation  to  Mme.  Viardot  was  that  of 
passionate  devotion  and  admiration.  He  could  not  do 
without  her,  and  took  counsel  with  her  about  his  affairs 
of  every  description.  Genuine  Slav  as  he  was,  suscepti¬ 
ble  to  impressions,  intellectually  productive  and  almost 
destitute  of  will-power,  he  was  fortunate  in  having  a 
fair  ruler  over  his  life.  When  any  friend  complained  to 
him  of  his  own  irregular  and  unfortunate  career,  he 
usually  answered :  “  Do  as  I  do,  my  dear  fellow ;  I 
allow  myself  to  be  ruled.”  He  did  what  Mme.  Viardot 
told  him  he  ought  to  do,  and  was  contented  therewith. 

She  seems  to  have  been  the  only  woman  of  impor¬ 
tance  in  his  life.  Naturally,  he  had  known  women  in 
his  youth.  At  the  age  of  nineteen,  in  Berlin,  he  was 
the  friend  of  a  little  sewing-girl  and  was  chagrined  that 
Bakunin,  with  whom  he  was  living,  could  tell  by  his 
looks  when  he  had  been  to  see  her.1  At  first  in  the 
beginning  of  the  fifties  he  lived  in  Russia,  and  then, 
1851-53,  with  a  Russian  serf,  Avdotya  Yermolayevna 
Ivanova,  who  must  have  been  very  beautiful,  but  to 
whom  it  appeared  to  be  impossible  to  impart  the  mys¬ 
teries  of  the  art  of  reading.  She  bore  to  him,  in  1842, 
the  daughter  whom  he  married  to  a  Frenchman  in  1864. 
His  letters  show  that  he  did  not  at  that  time  even  know 
where  the  mother,  who  had  married  a  Russian  official, 
was  living.  (Letter  to  Maslof,  December  26,  1864.) 
But  he  was  a  good  father  as  well  as  a  faithful  friend 
and  a  magnanimous  protector. 

His  character  was  noble ;  refined  and  pure  even  to  the 
point  of  tenderness ;  but  gentle  and  undecided.  Prob¬ 
ably  he  was  not  obliged  to  go  far,  as  a  young  man,  to 
find  the  model  of  single  traits  of  character  in  Rudin.  He 
was  never  guilty  of  any  low  act ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
1  Isaac  Pavlovsky:  Souvenirs  de  Tourguéneff,  p.  112  and  following. 


UIS  WEAKNESS  AND  STRENGTH. 


289 


he  hardly  ever  acted  with  any  bold  and  forcible  energy. 
In  reading  his  letters  we  are  surprised  to  see  with  what 
rascals  he  corresponded,  —  apparently  not  to  make  ene¬ 
mies  of  them,  —  and  with  how  little  respect  he  speaks  in 
confidential  letters  of  persons  to  whom  in  other  letters 
he  shows  great  regard.  When  we  find  that  Turgenief, 
with  a  character  in  which  will-power  was  so  weakly 
developed,  during  the  whole  of  his  life  remained  invio¬ 
lably  faithful  to  the  old  liberal  convictions  of  his  youth, 
we  can  scarcely  err  in  attributing  to  Mine.  Yiardot  no 
small  degree  of  honor  for  this  result.  If  she  had  influ¬ 
enced  him  in  the  opposite  direction,  he  would  probably 
have  become  conservative,  and  if  her  house  and  circle 
had  not  been  decidedly  liberal,  perhaps  an  influence  from 
some  other  direction  would  have  succeeded  in  swaying 
him.  On  the  contrary,  he  seems  to  have  been  entirely 
independent  in  his  obstinate  position  as  the  exponent 
and  pupil  of  Western  Europe. 

In  perfect  accord  with  the  weak  appearance  of  his 
will-power  in  Turgenief’s  character  is  the  circumstance 
that  as  an  author  he  comes  forward  with  a  confidence 
like  that  of  a  somnambulist.  He  said  to  Mikhailof,  Pro¬ 
fessor  of  Physiology  in  St.  Petersburg  (from  whom  I 
have  it)  :  “  I  see  a  man  who  strikes  me  from  some  char¬ 
acteristic  or  other,  perhaps  of  little  importance.  I  forget 
him.  And  then,  long  after,  the  man  suddenly  starts  up 
from  the  grave  of  forgetfulness.  About  the  character¬ 
istic  which  I  observed,  others  group  themselves,  and  it  is 
of  no  use  now  if  I  want  to  forget  him  :  I  cannot  do  it ; 
he  has  taken  possession  of  me  ;  I  think  with  him,  live 
in  him  ;  I  can  only  restore  myself  to  ease  by  finding 
an  existence  for  him.” 

Turgenief,  as  a  writer,  is  more  elegant  than  forcible. 
It  is  for  that  reason  that  female  characters  are  so  well 
adapted  to  his  talents. 


290 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


With  tranquil  tenderness  he  draws  the  young  girls 
who  have  his  full  sympathy,  Helen  and  Gemma,  and  with 
an  indulgent  love  which,  nevertheless,  excludes  all  praise 
and  admiration  on  the  part  of  the  author.  Every  word 
which  is  said  of  them  is  determinative,  limiting.  One, 
in  play  of  features,  gestures,  laughter,  train  of  ideas  and 
love  is  wholly  Italian ;  the  other  is  impressed  on  the 
mind  of  the  reader  as  the  most  beautiful  type  of  Russian 
womanhood.  Only  the  best  authors  of  the  world  have 
produced  anything  so  natural,  so  well  sustained.  And 
the  worship  of  beauty  that  is  to  be  found  there  has  done 
no  harm  to  the  study  of  nature.  They  are  not  women 
whom  the  author  has  arbitrarily  created,  and  who  dwell 
in  the  fancy-land  of  poetry,  like  the  forms  of  women  in 
the  works  of  so  many  other  authors.  They  are  not 
products  of  Turgenief’s  personal  enthusiasm  for  the 
womanly,  not  merely  an  expression  of  his  ideal  alone, 
but  studies  built  up  on  a  foundation  of  a  delicate  sense 
of  reality,  and  by  the  force  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
the  real. 

In  the  more  important  male  characters,  from  the 
nature  of  the  material,  Turgenief  found  his  task  espe¬ 
cially  difficult.  While  the  chief  aim  of  an  author 
usually  is  to  sustain  his  characters  and  let  them  escape 
self-contradiction,  the  finest  characters  of  Turgenief 
are  made  up  of  contradictions.  He  understood  how  to 
treat  inconsistency  as  a  fundamental  trait  of  charac¬ 
ter  without  having  the  character  disorganized  thereby. 
With  the  regular  Russian,  as  he  describes  him,  there  is 
nothing  certain  to  be  depended  upon  except  instability. 
As  Alexis,  in  “A  Correspondence,”  leaves  Maria  in  the 
lurch,  so  Rudin  abandons  Natalia,  Sanin,  in  “Spring 
Floods,”  Gemma,  Litvinof,  in  “  Smoke,”  Tatyana,  etc.  ; 
they  abandon  youth,  freshness,  goodness  of  heart,  beauty, 


RUDIN  A  TYPE  OF  INCONSTANCY.  291 


happiness,  to  run  after  intoxication  of  the  senses  and 
degradation,  or  they  deceive  from  pure  weakness  and 
instability  in  themselves.  And  to  these  men,  whom  no 
one  can  trust,  and  whose  sudden  outbursts  of  passion 
and  sudden  cessation  thereof  surprise  themselves  not 
less  than  others,  correspond  women  on  whom  it  is  just 
as  impossible  to  depend,  women  who  are  on  the  point  of 
being  able  to  love,  but  cannot,  like  Marie  Odinzof,  in 
“  (Fathers  and  Sons  ;  ”  women  who  unintentionally  in¬ 
share,  abandon  themselves,  draw  back,  like  Iriona  in 
“  &moke  ;  ”  and,  finally,  cold  Bacchantes,  like  that  Maria 
Nikolayevna  who  carries  away  Sanin  from  Gemma. 

Sometimes,  the  inconsistency  and  treachery  remain 
rather  unsatisfactorily  explained,  as  in  “Spring  Floods;” 
in  that  case,  it  depends  upon  the  fact  that  Turgenief 
assumes,  so  to  speak,  that  this  trait  of  character  of 
his  young  men  is  known.  In  his  earliest  great  novel, 
“  Iiudin  ”  (1855),  the  study  of  inconsistency  is  so  thor¬ 
ough  and  exhaustive  that,  through  the  weakness  of  this 
one  character,  we  understand  the  weakness  of  the  Rus¬ 
sian  character  everywhere.  That  which  most  excites 
our  admiration  for  the  skill  of  the  artist  in  this,  is  that 
he  has  been  able  to  awaken  a  no  small  degree  of  sympa¬ 
thy  for  Kudin ;  that  in  the  milksop  and  phrase-monger 
he  has  shown  us  the  sincere  enthusiast.  Kudin,  who 
speaks  so  warmly,  tells  a  story  so  fascinatingly,  and  pos¬ 
sesses  all  “the  music  of  eloquence,”  is  lazy,  despotic, 
everlastingly  playing  a  part,  forever  living  at  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  others,  cold  when  he  seems  to  be  warmest, 
intellectually  weak  when  he  seems  to  be  about  to  accom¬ 
plish  something.  And  yet  Turgenief  shows  that  he 
deserves  our  pity  far  more  than  our  ill  will,  and  that  he 
rightfully  exerts  a  great  influence  on  young  souls. 

Men  with  constant  hearts  and  strong  wills  do  not 


292 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


appear  among  Turgenief’s  leading  figures  in  his  younger 
days.  They  are  Hamlets  who  descend  from  Pushkin’s 
Onyegin  and  Herzen’s  Beltov.  When  he  describes  a  man 
who  is  wholly  a  man,  and  to  whom  a  woman  can  look 
up,  then,  as  in  “  Helen,”  in  order  to  shame  his  country¬ 
men,  he  chooses  a  foreigner,  the  Bulgarian  Insarof,  who 
has  exactly  those  qualities  which  the  Russians,  from  the 
best  to  the  poorest,  lack.  The  model  of  the  figure  was  a 
real  Bulgarian,  Katianof,  who  has  figured  in  his  native 
land,  and  with  whom  Turgenief  (1855)  became  acquainted 
through  the  papers  of  a  neighboring  landed  proprietor, 
Karateyef.  Otherwise,  men  whom  Turgenief  himself  ad¬ 
mires  are  named  only  incidentally,  and  they  are  placed 
as  figures  in  the  background,  or  used  as  contrasts  to 
bring  out  the  falsity  and  weakness  of  the  leading  char¬ 
acter.  Such,  for  instance,  is  Pokorski  in  “  Rudin,”  of 
whom  Lekhnef  speaks  with  so  fascinating  an  enthusi¬ 
asm,  and  in  whom  we  really  may  see  a  portrait  of  the 
critic  Byelinski,  the  friend  and  teacher  of  Turgenief’s 
youth,  to  whose  memory  he  has  dedicated  “Fathers  and 
Sons,”  and  by  whose  side  he,  on  his  death-bed,  expressed 
his  desire  to  be  buried.  It  is  said  of  him  :  — 

“  Pokorski  made  the  impression  of  a  very  quiet  and 
gentle,  almost  weak  nature ;  he  loved  women  to  madness, 
enjoyed  a  little  dissipation,  and  would  not  have  suffered 
an  insult  of  any  kind  whatever.  Rudin  appeared  to  be 
all  fire  and  flame,  life,  boldness,  but  at  the  bottom  of  his 
soul  he  was  cold  and  almost  a  coward,  so  long  as  his 
vanity  was  not  wounded,  for  then  his  self-control  would 
be  entirely  destroyed  by  his  frenzy.  He  continually 
sought  to  be  the  master  of  others  .  .  .  yet  acquiesced 
in  bearing  his  yoke,  but  to  Pokorski  all  submitted  volun¬ 
tarily  .  .  .  oh,  it  was  a  beautiful  time  and  I  cannot 
believe  that  it  was  wasted.  How  often  have  I  not  met 


ORIGIN  OF  BAZAROF. 


293 


people  from  that  time,  my  former  comrades,  men  who 
seemed  to  have  sunken  into  a  purely  animal  existence,  — 
and  yet  it  was  only  necessary  to  mention  Pokorski’s 
name ;  immediately  all  the  good  that  had  survived  in 
them  rose  to  the  surface,  as  when  one  in  a  dirty,  dark 
room  opens  a  bottle  of  perfume  which  has  been  forgotten 
there.” 

Yet  it  was  not  until  the  publication  of  “Fathers  and 
Sons  ”  in  1861  that  Turgenief  gave  a  typical  representa¬ 
tion  of  the  s'rong  character  and  of  intellectual  superiority 
among  the  Russians,  in  the  form  that  was  then  modern. 
The  character  of  Bazarof  introd  1  *ed  “  nihilism  ”  into  light 
literature.  Even  if  Turgenief  has  apparently  specially 
desired  to  strike  a  blow  against  the  idolization  of  simple 
utility,  with  its  poverty  of  ideas,  in  the  younger  genera¬ 
tion,  still  he  has  succeeded  in  drawing  a  man  who  by 
his  firmness,  his  courage,  and  his  steadfastness,  towers 
up  in  the  whole  of  European  literature,  which  is  not 
rich  in  types  of  true  men.  It  cannot  have  escaped  the 
observation  of  any  one  tolerably  familiar  with  modern 
books  that  it  is  as  if  true  manhood  had  disappeared.  A 
man  who  has  a  will  and  mind  and  uses  his  will  to  aid 
his  mind,  sticks  to  his  aim,  is  a  support  to  his  friends, 
is  an  everlasting  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  his  enemies,  and  to 
whom  the  women,  the  defenceless,  the  beginners  in  life, 
naturally  gravitate,  such  a  man  comes  no  more  to  the 
front,  save  in  the  dilute  romances  of  boys  and  ladies. 

In  1860,  on  a  journey  in  Germany  in  a  railway  car¬ 
riage,  Turgenief  met  a  young  Russian  physician,  who, 
in  the  brief  conversation  that  took  place  between  them, 
astonished  him  by  his  original  and  startling  views.  He 
gave  the  poet  the  idea  of  Bazarof.  In  order  to  famil¬ 
iarize  himself  with  the  character,  Turgenief  began  to 
keep  “Bazarof’s  Diary,”  that  is,  as  soon  as  he  read  a 


294 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


new  book  or  met  a  person  who  interested  him  or  ex¬ 
hibited  some  characteristic  of  a  political  or  social  nature, 
he  criticised  him  in  this  diary  according  to  Bazårof’s 
manner  of  thought. 

As  is  well  known,  it  was  not  so  much  by  the  genius 
which  was  displayed  in  the  delineation  of  the  principal 
character  as  it  was  from  the  effect  the  work  created,  the 
ill  will,  the  misunderstandings,  the  passionate  attacks,  it 
provoked  on  the  part  of  the  radical  leaders,  that  “  Fathers 
and  Sons  ”  was  an  event  in  the  history  of  Russian  litera¬ 
ture  and  in  the  author’s  own  life.  The  book  is  a  master¬ 
piece  without  a  blemish,  besides  being  the  original 
prototype  of  all  the  modern  novels  in  different  countries 
which  treat  of  an  older  and  younger  generation  in  their 
reciprocal  relations  and  conflicts;  but  in  the  beginning 
nothing  else  was  seen  in  it  than  the  depreciation  of  the 
younger  generation  to  the  advantage  of  the  culture  of 
the  older. 

In  the  face  of  this  stupidity,  Turgenief’s  own  utter¬ 
ances  about  the  hero  have  an  increased  interest.  A 
certain  Slutchevski  had  upbraided  him  that  Bazårof 
had  made  so  unfavorable  an  impression.  He  answers 
(1862)  :  “Nevertheless,  Bazårof  drives  all  the  other  per¬ 
sons  of  the  novel  into  the  background.  .  .  .  He  is  honest, 
upright,  and  a  democrat  of  the  purest  water.  And  you 
find  in  him  no  good  quality  !  He  commends  ‘Force  and 
Matter’  particularly  as  a  popular,  that  is  a  worthless 
book.  The  duel  with  Pavel  Petrovitch  is  introduced  to 
represent  the  intellectual  vacuity  of  the  elegant,  noble 
knighthood ;  it  is  even  then  almost  too  ridiculously 
represented.  .  .  .  According  to  my  view,  Bazårof  is  con¬ 
stantly  wholly  superior  to  Pavel  Petrovitch  and  not  the 
reverse.  When  he  calls  himself  a  ‘  nihilist,’  we  must  read 
revolutionist.  ...  On  the  one  side  a  venal  official,  on  the 


“  SMOKE 


“  Vine  IN  SOIL. 


295 


other  an  ideal  youth.  Such  pictures  I  leave  for  others 
to  draw ;  I  strove  for  something  greater.  ...  I  close 
with  the  remark :  If  the  reader  does  not  find  Bazårof 
dear  to  him  in  spite  of  all  his  coarseness,  heartlessness, 
merciless  dryness  and  sharpness,  —  then  the  fault  is 
mine  and  I  h  .ve  misse  l  my  mark.  But  sweeten  with 
syrup  —  to  speak  after  the  manner  of  Bazårof  —  that  I 
would  not  do,  although  I  had  immediately  won  the 
youth  over  to  my  side  thereby.” 

And  twelve  years  later,  after  a  fresh  attack,  he  turns 
back  again  to  his  tenderness  for  Bazårof.  He  writes : 
“  What !  you  also  contend  that  I  caricatured  youth  in 
Bazårof.  You  repeat  this  —  pardon  the  freedom  of  the 
expression — insane  complaint.  Bazårof,  my  favorite 
child,  for  whose  sake  I  broke  with  Katkof,  and  on  whom 
I  lavished  all  the  colors  I  could  command !  Bazårof, 
this  intelligent  man,  this  hero,  a  caricature  !  ”  .  .  . 1 

By  the  novel  “Smoke,”  Turgenief  fell  out  with 
another  not  less  influential  group  in  Russia  than  that 
wliich  had  been  s  >  much  offended  by  *■  Fathers  and  Sons.” 
It  was  particularly  a  blow  aimed  at  the  Slavophiles, 
and  imbittered  them  in  every  case  against  him.  Katkbf 
and  Dostoyevski  were  from  this  time  his  bitter  enemies 
and  persecutors.  In  this  book  certain  twaddling  and 
conceited  Russian  quasi-reformers  are  thrown  aside  with 
a  cutting  scorn,  which  recalls  to  a  denizen  of  the  North 
Henrick  Ibsen’s  manner  of  treating  certain  reformers 
among  his  countrymen. 

But  in  “Virgin  Soil”  (1877),  Turgenief’s  last  great 
work  and  the  most  versatile  he  wrote,  he  has  brought 
his  criticism  of  society  to  an  end  with  a  thorough  unpar¬ 
tisan  justice,  by  treating  alike  impartially  families, 

1  Briefe  von  J.  S.  Turgenjjev,  Uebersetzt  von  H.  Rulie,  1880,  i.  9(i 
and  following,  214  and  following. 


296 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


tendencies,  and  races  in  his  great  native  land.  “  Virgin 
Soil  ”  is  inferior  to  the  older,  larger  novels  to  the  extent 
that  here  for  the  first  time  we  feel  clearly  that  the 
author  has  lived  for  a  long  time  out  of  Russia,  making 
up  for  the  lack  of  personal  observation  by  reading  news¬ 
papers  and  legal  reports ;  and  still  this  book  is  the 
richest  and  most  complete  expression  of  Turgenief’s 
humanity  and  worldly  wisdom,  and  of  his  love  of  free¬ 
dom  and  truth. 

Here,  perhaps  in  the  most  positive  manner,  his  filial 
affection  for  Russia,  his  appreciation  of  the  Russian 
youth,  is  brought  to  light ;  here  appears  unveiled  his 
vision  of  its  high  idealism.  It  is  quite  true  that  every¬ 
thing  miscarries  here.  With  Turgenief  all  exertions 
miscarry ;  upon  the  whole,  everything  meets  with  mis¬ 
fortune.  For  the  moment  only  hopelessness  rules.  The 
older  generation,  with  the  liberalism  of  Sipjaegin,  is 
once  for  all  given  up ;  in  the  younger  generation,  there 
is  much  that  is  well  meant,  much  is  disinterestedly 
carried  into  effect,  but  all  is  fruitless.  Nezhdanof  wants 
to  go  out  among  the  people,  wants  to  distribute  pam¬ 
phlets  among  the  peasants.  It  has  the  force  of  a  sym¬ 
bol  that  the  peasants  misunderstand  him.  They  will 
only  drink  with  him ;  and  the  apostle  of  the  common 
people  is  carried  home  dead-drunk.  It  was  not  with¬ 
out  cause  that  Nezhdanof  had  previously  finished  his 
poem,  “The  Sleep,”  with  this  picture  never  to  be  for¬ 
gotten  :  — 

“  With  a  glass  of  spirit  in  thy  hand,  with  head  leaning 
against  the  North  Pole,  with  feet  pressed  against  Cauca¬ 
sus,  oh,  fatherland  !  Thus  thou  sleepest,  holy  Russia, 
deeply  and  soundly  and  steadily.” 

And  yet  in  this  last  work  a  future  is  to  be  seen  in 
vague,  distant  outlines.  Young  women  like  Marianne 


HOSTILITY  TO  GERMANY. 


297 


and  Maschurin,  young  men  like  Markelof,  like  Solomin, 
like  Nezhdanof  even,  prepare  the  way  for  it. 

The  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  Turgenief  passed 
alternately  in  the  two  countries,  Germany  and  France, 
to  which  he  was  most  indebted  for  his  culture.  He 
lived  in  Baden-Baden  and  Paris.  His  relations  to  Ger¬ 
many  and  France  were,  however,  quite  different.  Prob¬ 
ably  on  account  of  ancient  Russian  tradition,  and  besides 
in  consequence  of  the  nationality  of  Mine.  Viardot,  he 
was  far  more  closely  bound  to  France  than  to  Germany. 
He  had  studied  in  Berlin,  and  the  criticism  of  young 
Hegelianism  had  refined  and  stimulated  his  mind.  But, 
although  he  worshipped  Goethe  as  the  master  above  all 
others,  and  for  a  while  in  his  youth  was  wholly  absorbed 
in  Heine,  although  he  continued  to  have  friendly  rela¬ 
tions  with  German  poets  and  writ  rs  like  Paul  Ileyse, 
Ernst  Dohm,  and  Ludwig  Pietseh,  spoke  the  language 
fluently,  and  knew  how  to  value  the  scientific  greatness 
of  Germany,  —  in  spite  of  all  these  bonds  binding  him 
to  that  country,  the  Germans  in  his  books,  as  in  almost 
all  Russian  romances  and  novels,  are  continually  repre¬ 
sented  in  a  highly  satirical,  and  now  and  then  even  in 
a  hateful  light.  It  is  a  weakness  of  German  criticism 
that  it  has  not  been  able  to  see  this  evident  fact.  It  is 
true  enough,  as  a  general  rule,  that  all  nations  describe 
others  without  enthusiasm.  A  Russian  woman,  as  drawn 
by  Victor  Cherbuliez  or  Paul  Ileyse  ( Ladislaus  Bolski, 
“  In  Paradise,”  Das  Gluck  zu  Rothenburg),  never  has 
the  good  part.  But  there  seems  to  have  been  a  remnant 
of  national  hate  at  the  bottom  of  Turgenief’s  soul. 

Although,  on  the  other  hand,  he  did  not  fail  to  have 
an  eye  to  the  deficiencies  in  the  French  culture,  he  con¬ 
ducted  himself  in  an  entirely  different  manner  in  regard 
to  it.  He  felt  that  his  art  was  wholly  understood  and 


298 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


appreciated  in  that  Paris  which  is  otherwise  so  full  of 
prejudice  towards  foreigners.  He  had  equally  warm 
admirers  among  those  of  the  same  age  as  himself 
(Mérimée),  those  of  a  little  younger  generation  (Augier, 
Taine,  Flaubert,  Goncourt),  and  among  the  youngest 
authors  (Zola,  Daudet,  Maupassant).  With  that  circle 
of  authors  of  which  Flaubert  was  the  centre,  he  associ¬ 
ated  on  a  friendly  and  brotherly  footing  as  with  the 
writers  of  no  other  land. 

His  relations  to  his  own  country  were  fluctuating. 
In  his  younger  days  he  was  popular  and  then  a  subject  of 
hatred.  It  was  first  seen  on  his  last  visit  to  Russia  that 
the  misunderstanding  —  that  he  should  have  abandoned 
the  ideals  of  his  youth  —  had  given  way  to  a  better 
understanding,  and  his  journey  became  a  kind  of  trium¬ 
phal  tour  through  the  ovations  which  he  received  from 
the  youth.  It  is  true  that  these  ovations  created  such 
uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the  government,  that  it  short¬ 
ened  his  stay  in  St.  Petersburg.  In  Moscow,  where 
Katkof  had  attacked  him  as  hostile  to  his  fatherland 
and  seditious,  a  festival  had  been  arranged  for  him,  to 
which  Dostoyevski  also  was  invited,  his  more  recent, 
spiteful  appearance  against  Turgenief  having  been  over¬ 
looked  on  account  of  the  convictions  of  his  youth  and  his 
martyrdom. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  more  the  younger  generation 
was  reconciled  to  the  author  of  “  Fathers  and  Sons,”  and 
the  more  warmly  he  was  greeted,  the  more  the  dissatis¬ 
faction  of  the  Russian  government  with  him  increased. 
This  was  also  very  clearly  shown  at  his  death.  A  sol¬ 
emn  funeral,  with  decorated  houses,  a  long  procession 
and  addresses  at  the  grave  were  forbidden.  In  perfect 
quiet,  as  if  he  were  a  convict,  the  man  was  buried  who, 
in  these  later  days,  had  given  the  widest  reputation  to 
the  name  of  Russia, 


UlS  MELANCHOLY. 


299 


For  in  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life,  at  least,  he  could 
have  rejoiced  in  an  admiration  which  was  equally  rever¬ 
ential  over  the  whole  of  the  civilized  world. 

Did  he  rejoice  at  it  ?  I  believe  not.  It  affected  him 
agreeably,  but  he  did  not  delight  in  it,  and  it  did  not 
disperse  his  melancholy.  Edmond  de  Goncourt  relates 
of  Turgenief,  that  at  a  dinner  given  by  Flaubert,  in 
March,  1872,  during  a  moment  of  despondency,  which 
sometimes  seizes  upon  a  circle  of  friends  who  are  get¬ 
ting  on  towards  old  age,  he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried 
away  so  far  as  to  say :  “You  know  that  there  is  some¬ 
times  found  in  a  room  an  odor  of  musk  which  cannot  be 
driven  out ;  so  it  seems  to  me  that  about  my  person, 
and  that  continually,  there  is  a  perfume  of  dissolution, 
annihilation,  death.”  His  last  works,  the  charming  and 
original  novel  “Clara  Militch,”  which  is  a  variation  of 
the  theme  of  his  youth,  disappointed  love,  and  his  admi¬ 
rable  co  lection  of  prose  poems,  “Seuilia,”  contain  an 
almost  deeper  melancholy  than  the  works  of  his  youth, 
save  that  a  lyrical,  fantastic  element  most  poetically 
flashes  through  them.  Here,  for  the  last  time,  he  stands 
face  to  face  with  the  secret  of  life,  and  explains  it  in 
unceasing  sadness  in  symbols  and  visions.  Nature  is 
hard  and  cold ;  then  let  man  not  neglect  to  love.  There 
is  a  scene  here  where  Turgenief,  on  a  solitary  journey 
from  Hamburg  to  London,  sits  by  the  hour  with  a 
poor,  cowed,  fettered  little  monkey’s  hand  in  his  —  the 
genius,  whose  spirit  had  ransacked  the  universe,  hand 
in  hand  with  the  little  anthropoid  animal,  like  two  kin¬ 
dred  mortals,  two  children  of  the  same  mother,  —  there 
is  here  more  true  devotion  than  in  any  book  of  devotion. 

At  the  last,  Turgenief  seems  to  have  had  a  strong 
impression  of  man’s  ingratitude.  No  one  who  has  read 
“Senilia”  will  ever  forget  “The  Feast  in  Heaven.”  All 


300 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  virtues  were  invited,  and  the  virtues  only;  no  men 
were  invited,  only  ladies.  Many  virtues  came,  small 
and  great.  The  small  virtues  were  more  agreeable  and 
more  modest  than  the  great ;  but  all  seemed  to  be 
well  contented  and  talked  kindly  to  each  other,  as  is 
becoming  for  those  who  are  akin.  Then  the  good  God 
observed  two  beautiful  ladies  who  did  not  seem  to  be 
acquainted  with  each  other.  The  master  of  the  house 
took  one  of  the  ladies  by  the  hand  and  led  her  to  the 
other,  and  he  introduced  :  Charity  —  Gratitude. 

It  was  the  first  time  since  the  creation  of  the  world 
that  the  two  had  met. 

What  sadness  in  the  wit  and  what  bitterness ! 

It  also  occurs  to  me  that  my  gratitude  towards  this 
great  benefactor  has  its  first  expression  when  he  can  no 
longer  be  sensible  of  any  thanks. 


VI. 


In  contrast  to  the  national  pessimism  in  Turgenief 
stands  the  national  optimism  in  Dostoyevski.  The  great 
sceptic  Turgenief,  who  believed  in  so  little,  believed  in 
the  culture  of  Western  Europe.  Dostoyevski  despised 
the  Occident,  and  believed  in  Russia.  If  the  works  of 
Turgenief  are,  to  some  extent,  to  be  regarded  as  emigrant 
literature,  then  we  stand  with  Dostoyevski  wholly  on 
Russian  soil ;  he  is  the  autochthonic  author,  “  the  true 
Scythian,”  the  legitimate  barbarian  without  a  drop  of 
classic  blood  in  his  veins. 

Look  at  this  countenance  !  half  the  face  of  a  Russian 
peasant,  half  the  physiognomy  of  a  criminal,  with  flat¬ 
tened  nose,  small,  piercing  eyes,  under  eyelashes  which 
tremble  with  nervousness,  long,  thick,  untidy  beard,  and 
light  hair ;  add  to  this  the  forehead  of  a  thinker  and  a 
poet,  large  and  shapely,  and  the  expressive  mouth, 
which,  even  when  closed,  speaks  of  tortures  without 
number,  of  ingulfing  sadpess,  of  unhealthy  desires,  en¬ 
during  pity,  sympathy,  passionate  envy,  anxiety,  tor 
ture  !  Look  at  this  body,  which  is  nothing  but  nerves, 
small  and  slender,  round-shouldered,  and  tenacious  of 
life,  from  his  youth  up  subject  to  epileptic  fits  and  hal¬ 
lucinations  !  Tliis  exterior,  at  first  sight  plain  and  vul¬ 
gar,  on  closer  examination  stamped  with  weird  genius, 
thoroughly  morbid  and  wholly  extraordinary,  speaks  of 
Dostoyevski’s  epileptic  genius,  of  the  depths  of  mildness 
which  filled  his  soul,  of  the  billows  of  almost  insane 
acuteness  which  frequently  mounted  into  his  head; 

301 


302 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


finally  of  that  ambition  which  creates  greatness  in  its 
efforts,  and  the  envy  which  creates  smallness  in  the 
soul. 

It  is  a  character  which  reminds  one  of  Rousseau’s,  irri¬ 
table  and  suspicious,  with  fits  of  depression  and  the 
most  exalted  flights.  Although  his  family  belonged  to 
the  lower  ranks  of  nobility  of  Russia,  from  which  the 
subordinate  officials  are  generally  taken,  he  has,  like 
Rousseau,  a  thoroughly  democratic  stamp.  Moreover, 
even  if  he  is  fanatical  in  his  ideas,  like  Rousseau,  he  dif¬ 
fers  from  him  in  his  profound  spiritual  characteristics. 
Rousseau  is  a  deist,  but,  in  spite  of  his  sentimentality, 
not  a  Christian,  an  enemy  of  the  Christian  humility,  and 
of  all  submission  to  fate.  Dostoyevski,  on  the  contrary, 
—  entirely  regardless  of  the  fact  whether  his  dogmatic 
faith  was  orthodox  or  not,  —  is  in  his  whole  emotional 
nature  the  typical  Christian.  His  works  constitute  a  true 
repertory  of  characters  and  conditions  of  thought  con¬ 
ceived  from  a  Christian  standpoint.  All  his  persons  are 
invalids,  sinners  or  saints,  of  both  sexes,  and  the  transi¬ 
tion  from  sinner  to  a  convert,  from  fair  sinner  to  fair 
saint,  and  from  the  bodily  sick  to  the  spiritually  sound, 
happens,  now  after  a  slow  purification,  and  now  at  a 
flash,  as  in  the  New  Testament ;  nay,  often  the  fair 
sinner  is  at  the  same  time  a  fair  saint,  and  the  great¬ 
est  criminal  just  as  near  being  worthy  of  admiration 
as  he  is  near  being  a  scoundrel. 

Physiologically  and  psychologically,  all  these  types  of 
paupers  and  poor  fellows,  of  the  ignorant  good-hearted, 
of  the  simple  emotional,  of  noble  Magdalens,  of  the  ner¬ 
vously  distracted,  of  those  seized  with  frequent  halluci¬ 
nations,  of  gifted  epileptics,  of  enthusiastic  seekers  after 
martyrdom,  are  just  the  same  types  as  prevailed  centu¬ 
ries  ago. 


DOSTO  YE  VS  El. 


303 


Feodor  Mikhailovitch  Dostoyevski  was  born  in  Octo¬ 
ber,  1821,  in  a  hospital  for  the  poor,  in  Moscow,  where 
his  father  was  physician.  There  was  a  large  family  of 
children,  and  small  means.  Feodor  and  his  brother 
Aleksei,  to  whom  he  was  bound  through  life  by  an  inti¬ 
mate  friendship  and  common  literary  interests,  were 
sent  to  the  military  school  for  engineers  in  St.  Peters¬ 
burg,  and  left  it  as  sub-lieutenants.  But,  after  the 
lapse  of  a  year  (1844),  Feodor  asked  for  his  discharge 
from  the  military  service,  to  devote  himself  to  literature. 
He  was  even  then  suffering  from  the  disease  which  was 
aggravated  when  he  was  subsequently  whipped  in  Sibe¬ 
ria  ;  he  had  epileptic  fits,  and  moreover  he  was  vision¬ 
ary.  With  regard  to  the  subjects  which  he  treated  later, 
and  his  ability  to  express  the  psychology  of  crime,  this 
saying  of  his  to  a  friend  is  characteristic:  “The  dejec¬ 
tion  which  succeeds  my  epileptic  attacks  has  this  char¬ 
acteristic,  —  I  feel  like  a  great  criminal ;  it  comes  over 
me  like  an  unknown  fault ;  a  criminally  guilty  deed 
weighs  upon  my  conscience.” 

At  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  wrote  his  novel  “  Poor 
Folk.”  Towards  the  close  of  his  life,  in  the  “  Diary  of 
an  Author  ”  he  related  the  circumstances  of  his  first  ap¬ 
pearance  as  an  author.  When  he  had  written  his  novel, 
and  did  not  know  how  he  should  get  his  manuscript  dis¬ 
posed  of,  he  got  one  of  his  friends,  the  subsequently 
well-known  author  Grigorovitch,  to  take  it  to  the  poet 
Niekråsof.  About  three  o’clock  in  the  morning,  Dos¬ 
toyevski  heard  some  one  knock  at  his  door.  It  was 
Grigorovitch,  who  had  come  back  with  Niekråsof,  who 
had  already  read  the  novel,  and  was  so  struck  by  it  that 
he  felt  an  impulse  immediately  to  press  the  author  to 
his  heart.  When  early  the  next  morning  he  left  Dos¬ 
toyevski,  he  went  with  the  manuscript  straight  to 


304 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Byelinski,  “  the  oracle  of  Russian  thought,  the  critic 
whose  bare  name  frightened  debutants.”  —  “A  new 
Gogol  has  arisen,”  shouted  Hiekråsof,  as  he  broke  in 
through  the  door.  “  Certainly,  they  shoot  up  nowadays 
like  toadstools,”  answered  Byelinski,  fretfully,  and  re¬ 
luctantly  looked  into  the  manuscript.  But  the  effect  on 
him  was  the  same  as  on  Niekråsof.  When  the  author 
visited  him,  he  said  to  him  enthusiastically  :  “  Young  as 
you  are,  do  you  yourself  understand  how  true  it  is  what 
you  have  written  ?  I  don’t  think  so.  But  true  artistic 
inspiration  is  there.  Respect  the  gifts  you  possess,  and 
you  will  become  a  great  author.” 

In  order  to  understand  this  astonishment  and  this 
enthusiasm,  we  must  remember  that  the  Russian  lit¬ 
erature  then  did  not  possess  a  single  attempt  of  this 
kind  except  Gogol’s  “  Cloak,”  and  that  Turgenief’s 
“  Recollections  of  a  Huntsman  ”  did  not  appear  till  live 
years  later.  When  a  month  or  two  after  Byelinski’s  con¬ 
versation  with  Dostoyevski  “  Poor  Folk  ”  (1846)  issued 
from  the  press,  the  author’s  literary  reputation  was  at 
once  established. 

The  uneasiness  and  versatility  of  his  nature  is  dis¬ 
played  in  the  circumstance  that  though  he  had  made  his 
debut  in  a  direction  which  is  like  that  into  which 
Dickens  struck  a  little  earlier,  he  continued  his  career 
with  a  worthless  and  comic  novel  in  Paul  de  Kock’s 
manner. 

He  was  an  inordinate  reader  at  an  early  day.  At  the 
age  of  twelve  he  had  already  ploughed  through  Karamzin 
and  Walter  Scott,  histories  and  historical  novels  by  the 
quantity.  Reading  exhausted  him,  nervous,  irritable, 
timid,  emotional,  precocious  as  he  was,  and  with  an  un¬ 
usual  gift  of  placing  himself  in  the  imagined  situation. 
In  the  School  for  Engineers,  he  read  Balzac  with  special 


TIIS  ASBEST  FOB  FOURIERISM.  305 

zeal,  being  carried  awav  by  “  Pure  Goriot,”  which  in  it s 
whole  intellectual  character  is  one  of  the  predecessors 
of  his  own  novels,  and  translated  “  Eugenie  Grandet,” 
occupied  himself  in  addition  very  much  with  George 
Sand  and  Eugene  Sue,  Dickens  and  Hoffman,  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  all  of  whom  is  perceptible  in  his  works.  In  this 
first  period  of  his  youth  Dostoyevski  was  still  a  prey  to 
varied  influences. 

He  has  himself  told  in  his  later  years  how  Byelinski 
at  the  close  of  the  forties  drew  him  on  to  socialism,  and, 
as  he  called  it,  tried  to  convert  him  to  atheism.  The 
same  hatred  and  the  same  ingratitude  towards  the  men 
who  influenced  his  youth,  Herzen,  Byelinski,  and  others, 
which  found  its  expression  in  the  novel  “  The  Demons  ” 
is  shown  in  this  bitter  and  poisonous  attempt  to  cast  the 
blame  of  his  youthful  conviction  upon  a  man  who  is 
dead.  We  must  remember  that  it  is  an  old  re-actionist 
who  speaks,  and  in  his  defence  consider  that  Dostoyevski 
was  a  man  abused  by  life. 

On  the  23d  of  April,  1849,  at  five  o’clock  in  the  morn¬ 
ing,  he,  together  with  thirty-three  other  young  men,  was 
arrested. 

He  had  then  for  some  time  continuously  belonged  to 
the  circle  which  had  established  itself  around  a  certain 
Petrashevski,  an  adherent  of  the  system  of  Fourier;  in 
the  meetings  of  this  circle  the  talk  had  been  loud  and 
imprudent.  The  leader  was  a  genuine  Fourierist,  an 
enemy  of  gods  and  kings,  an  opponent  of  marriage  and 
property  in  the  predominant  forms.  The  indictment  of 
Dostoyevski  himself  was  to  this  effect :  Participation  in 
the  meetings  of  the  circle,  observations  about  the  strict¬ 
ness  of  the  censorship,  reading  or  listening  to  the  read¬ 
ing  of  prohibited  pamphlets,  and  finally  promises  of 
possible  aid  in  the  establishment  of  a  printing-office. 


306 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


The  accused  were  taken  to  the  castle  and  isolated  in 
the  casemates.  They  were  there  eight  months  without 
any  other  amusements  than  their  examinations  by  the 
magistrate.  It  was  not  until  towards  the  end  of  their 
time  of  imprisonment  that  they  were  furnished  with 
some  books  of  devotion.  The  poor  poet,  who  was  re¬ 
duced  to  the  necessity  of  communing  with  his  own 
thoughts  alone,  felt  as  if  he  had  been  under  an  air 
pump. 

December  22,  twenty-one  of  the  accused  who  had 
been  found  guilty  were  taken  out  to  Semenovski  Place, 
where  a  scaffold  had  been  erected.  With  the  thermometer 
at  — 15°  Fahr.  they  were  compelled  to  strip  to  their  shirts 
to  listen  to  the  reading  of  the  sentence.  This  reading  oc¬ 
cupied  a  half-hour.  When  it  began  the  perpetually  opti¬ 
mistic  Dostoyevski  turned  to  his  neighbor  and  said : 
“  Can  it  be  possible  that  they  are  going  to  execute  us  ?  ” 
Instead  of  answering,  the  person  to  whom  the  inquiry 
was  addressed  pointed  to  some  objects,  which  were  con¬ 
cealed  under  the  coverings  of  the  wagons  and  which 
looked  like  coffins.  The  sentence  ended  with  the  words, 
“  .  .  .  are  condemned  to  be  shot.”  A  priest  with  a 
crucifix  in  his  hand  now  came  forward  and  urged  the 
prisoners  to  confess.  They  refused  with  a  single  excep¬ 
tion.  They  then  fastened  Petrashevski  and  two  others 
of  the  leaders  to  the  stake.  An  officer  directed  his  com¬ 
pany  to  load  their  guns  and  wait  for  the  word  of  com¬ 
mand.  At  this  moment  a  white  flag  was  waved  and  it 
was  announced  to  the  condemned  that  the  Tsar  had  com¬ 
muted  their  punishment.  At  the  foot  of  the  scaffold 
sledges  were  waiting  which  were  to  carry  them  to  Siberia. 
Dostoyevski  was  sentenced  to  ten  years  hard  labor.  But 
his  punishment  was  changed  later  to  four  years  in  the 
house  of  correction,  and  four  years  service  as  a  soldier  in 


TUE  EFFECT  OF  TIIS  EXILE. 


307 


the  ranks  with  loss  of  his  rank  as  a  noble  and  his  rights 
as  a  citizen.  In  Tobolsk  the  ways  of  the  prisoners  sepa¬ 
rated  ;  they  said  farewell  to  each  other.  Their  feet  were 
fettered,  their  heads  shaved,  and  they  were  sent  to  their 
several  places  of  destination.1 

What  Dostoyevski  saw,  felt,  lived  through,  and  suf¬ 
fered  in  the  Siberian  House  of  Correction  among  the 
dregs  of  the  world,  the  poor  creatures,  the  ignorant  and 
the  barbarous,  the  criminals  and  the  desperate,  that  he 
has  indirectly  told  the  world  in  his  “  Recollections  of  a 
Dead  House,”  one  of  the  greatest  masterpieces  descrip¬ 
tively  and  psychologically,  which  any  literature  has  to 
show.  If  he  had  written  it  in  his  own  name,  and  spoken 
of  his  crime  as  political,  the  book  would  never  have 
passed  the  censor.  Therefore  an  imaginary  narrator  is 
found,  who  in  a  moment  of  passion  has  committed  a  com¬ 
mon  crime,  and  to  whose  account  the  observations  are 
placed.  What  Dostoyevski  does  not  tell  is  that  he  him¬ 
self  was  the  subject  of  the  horrible  corporal  punishments 
which  he  describes. 

From  1849  to  1859  Dostoyevski  was  wholly  dead  to 
literature. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-seven  he  returned  home  from 
Siberia  with  his  nervous  system  wholly  destroyed.  A 
great  change  had  taken  place  in  him.  In  the  four  years 
he  had  passed  in  the  workhouse,  he  had  only  one  single 
book  with  him,  the  New  Testament,  and  he  had  read  it 
again  and  again.  All  revolt  was  quenched  in  his  soul.  It 
was  not  simply  that  he  saw  with  how  little  knowledge  of 
men  he  had  wished  to  reform  the  world,  and  how  little 
this  abstract  idealism  availed ;  but  for  once  and  all  he 
had  become  meek  and  humble,  obedient  and  submissive. 
He  found  his  punishment  just ;  nay,  even  more,  he  was 
1  De  Vogue :  Le  Homan  Russe,  p.  218  and  following. 


o08 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


grateful  to  the  Tsar  Nicholas  for  it.  He  imagined  that 
without  it  he  would  have  become  insane ;  thought  that 
the  secret  horror  he  always  felt  at  the  approach  of  dark¬ 
ness,  under  normal  conditions  would  have  deprived  him 
of  his  reason ;  now  real  sufferings  deprived  it  of  its 
power. 

In  the  next  place  he  had  obtained  a  thorough  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Russian  people.  His  fate 
had  opened  to  him  an  insight  into  that  which  is  generally 
regarded  as  the  sewer  of  humanity;  and  there  he  found 
in  every  one,  even  in  those  who  had  sunken  the  deep¬ 
est,  something  of  value  in  spite  of  all  their  depravity. 
At  the  same  time  that  he  had  lost  all  faith  in  the  use  or 
possibility  of  a  political  revolution,  he  had  found  the 
faith  in  a  moral  revolution,  starting  from  the  bottom,  in 
the  spirit  of  the  gospel.  Thus  he  returned  as  the  phi¬ 
lanthropist  among  the  Russian  authors,  as  the  author 
of  the  helpless  pariahs.  It  has  somewhere  been  justly 
said  that  what  Wilberforce  was  in  the  English  Parlia¬ 
ment  for  the  negro,  he  became  in  the  Russian  litera¬ 
ture  for  the  proletariats,  —  that  is,  their  spokesman. 
As  an  artist  he  is  true  enough  not  to  embellish  the 
pariah  ;  as  a  poet  he  is  visionary  enough  to  proclaim  the 
presence  of  “  a  divine  spark,”  even  among  the  wretched. 
Nay  more,  the  morality  he  preaches  is,  perhaps,  the 
purest  expression  of  the  morality  of  the  pariah,  of 
the  morality  of  the  slave. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  philosopher  Frederick 
Nietzsche  for  the  establishment  of  the  real  and  wide 
contrast  between  the  morality  of  gentlemen  and  the 
morality  of  slaves.  The  expressions  originate  with 
him.  By  the  morality  of  gentlemen  is  meant  all  that 
morality  which  emanates  from  self-esteem,  positive  ani¬ 
mal  spirits :  the  morality  of  Rome,  of  Iceland,  of  the 


TIIS  MORAL  STAX  DA  RD. 


309 


renaissance ;  by  the  morality  of  the  slave,  all  that 
morality  which  proceeds  from  unselfishness  as  the  high¬ 
est  virtue,  from  the  denial  of  life,  from  the  hatred  for 
the  happy  and  the  strong. 

This  continual  praising  of  the  unselfish,  self-sacrificing 
person,  as  contrasted  to  that  person  who  lays  all  his 
strength  on  self-preservation,  self-development,  and  de¬ 
velopment  of  power,  does  not  by  any  means  spring  from 
a  spirit  of  unselfishness.  The  neighbor  commends  un¬ 
selfishness  because  he  has  the  profit  of  it.  If  he  thought 
himself  unselfish,  he  would  reject  all  that  which  would 
be  to  his  advantage.  Herein  lies  the  fundamental  con¬ 
tradiction  of  this  morality,  that  the  motive  for  it  is  in 
conflict  with  its  principles.  It  is  proclaimed  for  the 
advantage  of  the  unsuccessful  men,  and  generally  has 
no  more  zealous  or  ardent  advocates  than  that  kind  of 
unsuccessful  men  who  do  not  have  enough  independent 
spiritual  life  to  be  able  to  live  in  the  world  of  their 
own  ideas,  but  do  have  so-called  culture  enough  to  suffer 
under  it,  and  whose  existence  is  at  heart  envy.  What¬ 
ever  qualities  and  culture  such  men  have  cause  them 
only  torment;  they  live  in  a  constant  longing  for  ven¬ 
geance  on  those  who  they  think  are  happy. 

Dostoyevski  developed  into  a  colossal  example  of  this 
type.  With  the  worst  ill-treatment  of  his  life  behind 
him,  and  now  poor,  soon  in  debt,  and  in  continual  end¬ 
less  debt,  dependent  on  publishers,  whose  advances  fur¬ 
nish  him  his  means  of  subsistence,  he  is  to  begin  anew 
to  make  his  way  into  literature. 

The  first  book  which  he  wrote  after  his  return  from 
Siberia,  “  The  Injured  and  Oppressed,”  does  not  belong 
to  his  best  works,  but  it  contains  characters  of  which  his 
first  book  had  already  given  a  hint,  and  which  re-appear 
later.  Ha  had  brought  back  with  him  from  Siberia  a 


310 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


young  wife  with  whom  he  had  fallen  in  love,  the  widow 
of  one  of  the  adherents  of  Petrashevski,  who  had  died  in 
prison.  But  she  for  her  part  was  in  -love  with  another 
man  ;  and  Dostoyevski’s  letters  show  how  for  a  whole 
year  he  labored  to  unite  her  to  his  rival,  and  set  his 
friends  to  work  to  remove  the  obstacles  out  of  the  way 
of  their  union.  Nevertheless,  it  ended  in  the  marriage  of 
her  to  Dostoyevski. 

This  is  the  reality  which  underlies  the  occurrences 
in  “  The  Injured  and  Oppressed,”  in  which  the  charac¬ 
ters  who  remind  one  of  Dickens  do  not,  however,  make 
any  very  deep  impression. 

He  plunged  into  journalism,  which  during  his  whole 
life  had  a  fascination  for  him,  and  on  which  he  wasted 
much  time  and  force.  He  became  a  contributor  to  the 
Slavophile  newspapers  published  by  his  brother  Mikhail, 
first  “  The  Times,”  then  “  The  Epoch,”  and  preached 
the  love  and  admiration  for  Russia  “  which  cannot  be 
understood  by  reason,  but  which  is  a  matter  of  faith.” 

In  1865  lie  loses  his  first  wife  and  his  brother  Aleksei. 
Mikhail’s  second  newspaper  is  a  failure,  and  he  flies 
from  the  country  to  escape  from  his  creditors.  He  does 
not  enjoy  the  journey  which  he  makes  through  Ger¬ 
many,  France,  and  Italy.  He  continually  has  epileptic 
fits,  and  is  obliged  to  return  home  to  obtain  new  ad¬ 
vances  from  his  publishers,  which  they,  it  is  true,  con¬ 
cede  to  him,  but  only  on  the  most  unfavorable  conditions. 
He  brings  back  only  one  solitary  strong  impression 
from  his  travels,  that  of  an  execution  to  which  he  had 
been  a  witness  in  Lyons.  This  recalled  to  him  the 
moment  in  his  life  in  which  he  felt  the  greatest  horror, 
and  of  which  the  recollection  is  continually  coming  back 
in  his  novels  :  that  morning  hour  on  the  scaffold,  Decem¬ 
ber  22,  1849. 


“CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT.” 


311 


In  1862  he  made  a  strong  impression  on  the  reading 
world  by  his  “  Recollections  of  a  Dead  House.”  In 
1866  he  made  the  greatest  impression  of  his  life  in 
“Crime  and  Punishment”  ( Prestuplenie  i  Nakazanie). 
Hardly  any  other  work  has  contributed  so  much  to  the 
psychology  of  the  Russia  of  that  time.  What  the  book 
describes  is  only  apparently  something  special ;  in  real¬ 
ity,  it  unveils  a  great  picture  of  society. 

The  problem  of  the  book  in  a  more  limited  sense  is 
one  which  the  most  thoughtful  minds  have  struggled 
with ;  the  two  apparently  contradictory  estimates  which 
society  places  upon  the  value  of  human  life.  Bismarck 
has  cleverly  discussed  this  subject  in  his  speeches.1 
It  occupied  the  author  of  this  book,  when  several 
years  ago  in  Berlin  a  woman  who  was  more  than 
eighty-two  years  old  was  murdered  by  one  of  the  many 
lovers  whom  she  had  won  by  her  presents.2  The  prob¬ 
lem  was  this :  Has  human  life  absolute  value  ?  Why 
does  modern  society  answer  this  question  in  the  most 
contradictory  manner?  It  punishes  with  the  severest 
penalty  the  murder  by  the  mother  of  the  new-born 
child  without  regard  to  the  fact  that  she  for  fear  of 
shame  or  of  want  inflicts  upon  herself  a  far  greater- 
loss  and  a  far  greater  pain  than  she  inflicts  upon 
society ;  nay,  it  punishes  her  even  if  the  motive  of 
her  act  was  to  free  the  child  from  all  the  misery  in 
store  for  it.  Society  demands  that  the  full  cup  of 
earthly  misfortune  shall  be  poured  out  upon  the  little 
being’s  head.  But  society  does  not  oppose  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  manufactories,  the  operation  of  which 
entails  sickness  and  often  death  among  the  workmen, 
nay,  even  regards  the  founder  of  such  a  manufactory 

1  Gesammelte  Reden  des  Fiirsten  Bismarck  (by  Hahn),  i.  895, 

2  See  G.  Brandes:  Berlin,  p.  303  and  following. 


312 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


in  a  quarter  destitute  of  industrial  pursuits  as  a  bene¬ 
factor. 

The  one  who  in  Dostoyevski’s  work  struggles  with 
this  problem  is  Raskolnikof,  a  young  Russian  student, 
unusually  good-looking,  with  fine  features,  and  expres¬ 
sive  black  eyes,  eminently  gifted,  but  poor,  as  only  a 
Russian  student  is  poor,  plunged  in  the  deepest  poverty, 
clad  in  rags,  with  a  hat  which  cannot  be  seen  without 
awakening  laughter.  He  has  given  up  his  studies  on 
account  of  Iris  poverty,  has  tried  in  vain  to  support  him¬ 
self,  has  let  himself  go  to  ruin.  He  is  reserved,  gruff, 
suspicious,  and  hypochondriacal ;  he  is  proud,  but  also 
high-minded  and  good ;  he  very  reluctantly  betrays  his 
feelings.  He  is  ambitious,  with  a  tendency  to  boldness, 
but  often  so  despondent  that  he  seems  to  be  cold  and 
without  sensibility  to  the  degree  of  inhumanity.  He  is 
melancholy  by  nature,  sombre  and  passionate,  arrogant 
and  magnanimous,  sorrowful  over  the  unhappy  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  human  race,  with  a  constantly  burning  desire 
to  be  a  benefactor  on  a  grand  scale.  At  bottom  he  is 
without  ability.  According  to  the  opinion  of  the 
author,  that  is  generally  the  case  in  Russia,  where 
all  wish  to  become  suddenly  rich  without  toil  or 
trouble,  and  where  every  one  is  accustomed  to  have 
that  which  is  generally  attained  brought  to  him  all 
ready,  accustomed  to  be  led  about  in  leading-strings, 
accustomed  to  get  all  the  intellectual  nutriment  after 
it  has  been  masticated  by  others.  Capacity  does  not 
fall  down  from  heaven,  and  for  almost  two  centuries 
the  people  have  been  weaned  from  every  public  activity. 

Even  if  Raskolnikof  was  melancholy  from  the  first, 
poverty  creates  new  melancholy  in  him.  His  wretched 
room  is  enough  to  cast  an  uninterrupted  gloom  over  him. 
The  low,  small  room  contracts  his  whole  soul.  He  can- 


TUE  GERM  OF  THE  CRIME. 


313 


not  pay  his  rent  and  is  frequently  hungry.  In  the  long 
winter  evenings  he  has  no  light  and  lies  in  the  dark,  and 
at  last  does  not  even  try  to  get  a  light;  on  his  table  his 
college  text-books  are  covered  with  thick  dust.  He 
dreams,  dreams  continually.  .  .  . 

He  dreams  of  a  horrible  old  pawnbroker-woman,  very 
rich  and  miserly,  from  whom  he  has  had  a  loan  now  and 
then,  and  of  a  conversation  about  her  to  which  he  had 
once  listened  in  a  restaurant.  A  student  sitting  there 
said :  “  I  should  like  to  kill  the  old  crone  and  sack  her, 
and  I  assure  you  that  I  could  do  it  without  the  least  sting 
of  conscience.”  He  said  it  indeed  as  a  joke,  but  con¬ 
tinued  seriously  :  “  On  the  one  hand,  a  stupid,  wretched, 
malicious  old  crone,  who  not  only  never  gives  anything 
away,  but  does  harm  to  everybody  she  comes  in  contact 
with ;  on  the  other  hand,  fresh,  young  powers,  who  fail 
for  want  of  means  of  support,  and  that  by  the  thousands; 
hundreds,  perhaps  thousands  of  existences,  which  might 
be  brought  on  the  right  path,  dozens  of  families  which 
could  be  saved  from  wretchedness,  from  debauchery, 
from  loathsome  disease,  —  all  for  the  money  of  this  old 
crone.  .  .  .  And,  after  all,  what  weight  on  the  universal 
scales  of  life  has  the  life  of  this  swindling,  stupid, 
malicious  crone?  Not  more  than  a  louse’s  life  ora  cock¬ 
roach’s,  and  not  even  so  much,  —  for  the  old  woman  does 
much  more  harm,  for  she  undermines  the  life  of  others.” 

The  words  take  root  in  Raskolnikof’s  mind,  just  be¬ 
cause  the  same  thought  is  ready  to  be  developed  in  his 
head,  peeps  forth  from  his  brain  like  a  chicken  from  the 
shell,  and  especially  because  to  his  own  wretchedness  is 
added  that  of  others  who  are  dearest  to  him.  His  old 
mother,  who  is  living  in  her  country  village  on  an  annuity 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  rubles  a  year,  and  who  by 
knitting  and  embroidery,  which  is  spoiling  her  poor 


314 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


eyes,  earns  twenty  rubles  a  year  more,  sends  him  a 
letter,  from  whose  kind,  considerate  expressions  he 
learns  that  his  only  dearly  loved  sister,  proud  and  beauti¬ 
ful  as  she  is,  is  about  to  offer  up  herself  on  the  altar  of 
a  detested  marriage  in  order  to  be  able  to  keep  him  at 
the  university  and  support  her  mother  in  her  old  age. 
He  starts  up  against  it,  he  kicks  against  the  pricks,  he 
will  forbid  his  pure  sister  from  entering  into  this:  hor¬ 
rible  marriage.  But  what  right  has  he  to  forbid  it  ? 
How  can  he  prevent  it  ?  What  can  he  offer  her  instead  ? 
To  devote  to  her  and  their  mother  his  whole  future, 
when  he  has  first  completed  his  studies  and  obtained  a 
position  !  In  ten  years  perhaps  !  But  by  that  time  his 
mother  will  be  blind  or  dead  from  fasting  or  consump¬ 
tion,  and  Ip-  that  time  his  sister  will  be  .  .  .  what  can¬ 
not  happen  in  ten  years  ! 

He  had  early  formed  a  theory  of  his  own  about  crime, 
that  the  extraordinary  man  has  the  right,  not  the  official 
right,  but  one  which  his  conscience  gives  him,  to  over¬ 
step  certain  obstacles  and  barriers  which  circumscribe 
other  men ;  only,  however,  in  the  case  that  his  idea,  an 
idea  which  looks  towards  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
demands  such  a  step.  If  men  like  Kepler  and  Newton 
could  in  no  way  have  made  their  discoveries  available 
to  the  world  without  the  taking  of  human  life,  which  put 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  these  discoveries,  then  they 
would  have  had  the  right,  uay,  it  would  have  been  their 
duty,  to  take  that  human  life.  Experience  teaches  him 
that  almost  all  the  lawgivers  and  reformers  of  humanity, 
from  the  oldest  down  to  Lycurgus,  Solon,  Mahomet, 
Napoleon,  have  been  criminals,  from  the  very  fact 
that  they  have  created  a  new  law  and  set  aside  the  old, 
which  was  regarded  by  society  as  holy  and  had  been 
handed  down  from  their  ancestors,  and  that  they  had  not 


ITS  DEVELOPMENT. 


315 


shrunk  from  the  shedding  of  blood,  and  that  even  very 
often  entirely  innocent  blood,  which  was  offered  up  with 
heroic  courage  for  the  defence  of  the  old  law.  The 
masses  do  not  recognize  the  right  of  such  men,  they 
execute  or  hang  them  when  they  can  compass  it,  but  the 
coming  generations  place  these  executed  men  on  ped¬ 
estals  and  show  them  honor.  And  is  not  he  himself 
such  an  exceptional  man  ? 

But  his  whole  being  is  roused  against  the  act.  It  is 
altogether  too  shameful,  far  too  disgusting.  To  kill  a 
little  old  woman  with  an  axe !  All  his  pride,  all  the 
nobility  in  his  nature,  shrinks  and  groans. 

Still  the  days  roll  on  —  and  there  is  no  other  way  out; 
slowly,  slowly  he  becomes  familiar  with  the  idea;  by 
the  strangest  accident  he  learns  a  time  when  the  old 
woman  on  a  certain  evening  will  be  alone  ...  it  is  as  if 
a  corner  of  his  coat  had  been  caught  on  the  wheel  of  a 
machine,  which  winds  him  in  with  it,  and  with  a  com¬ 
mingling  of  determined  resolution  and  child-like  reck¬ 
lessness,  in  a  moment  of  crime,  he  accomplishes  the 
murder  —  and  still  another  murder;  for  her  sister,  a 
simple  and  good  old  being,  comes  in  just  as  Raskolnikof 
has  begun  to  investigate  the  drawers  and  chests  of  his 
victim,  and  he  strikes  her  down  with  another  blow. 

But  he  was  not  equal  to  the  task,  or  too  nobly  consti¬ 
tuted  for  the  misdeed,  — just  as  you  may  regard  it.  He 
can  commit  murder  in  a  somnambulistic  insanity,  but  he 
does  not  know  how  to  steal.  He  only  appropriates  one 
or  two  worthless  things ;  with  the  greatest  difficulty  he 
escapes  the  fate  of  being  arrested  on  the  spot,  and  now 
begins  that  period  of  his  life  when  he  is  in  no  condition 
to  do  anything  else  than  brood  over  his  misdeed.  He 
obliterates  all  material  traces  of  it ;  but  he  is  absorbed 
in  the  thought  of  concealing  it,  and  betrays  himself  inad- 


316 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


vertently  more  every  day  which  passes,  to  those  who 
are  seeking  for  the  perpetrator  of  the  crime.  That, 
however,  is  not  the  chief  thing ;  no  discovery  from  with¬ 
out  annihilates  him,  but  an  inner  one,  that  he  is  not  one 
of  those  chosen,  exceptional  natures  to  whom  everything 
is  allowed.  After  having  committed  his  crime,  he  is  no 
longer  able  to  raise  himself  to  the  height  from  which  he 
regarded  it  before  it  was  accomplished.  He  is  consumed 
by  inches.  “No,”  he  says  to  himself,  “these  men  whom 
we  admire  are  not  constituted  as  I  am.  The  true  ruler, 
to  whom  everything  is  allowed,  lays  Toulon  waste,  estab¬ 
lishes  his  power  in  Paris  by  the  bayonet,  forgets  an 
army  in  Egypt,  sacrifices  a  half  a  million  of  men  on  a 
campaign  to  Moscow,  then  makes  a  pun  in  Vilno  about 
it,  —  and  after  his  death  he  is  idolized.  Such  men  must 
be  of  iron,  not  of  flesh  and  blood.”  And  a  collateral 
idea  almost  makes  him  smile  :  “Napoleon,  the  Pyramids, 
Waterloo  —  and  a  disgusting,  little  usury  practising  old 
crone,  with  a  red-strapped  trunk  under  her  bed.  Would 
a  Napoleon  ever  creep  in  under  the  bed  of  such  an  old 
crone  ?  .  .  .  Insanity.” 

He  is  not  sorry  for  the  murder  of  the  old  woman ;  he 
continues  to  regard  her  life  as  a  useless  one,  her  death 
as  an  indifferent,  almost  a  beneficial  act.  The  old 
woman  is,  and  continues  to  be,  a  secondary  matter ;  he 
would  only  by  killing  her  bring  a  principle  to  life,  kills 
not  a  human  being,  but  a  prejudice,  and  strides  over  the 
chasm  which  separates  the  every-day  souls  who  possess 
the  vulgar  faiths  from  the  host  of  the  elect.  He  has 
killed  the  prejudice,  but  he  remains  just  the  same  stand¬ 
ing  on  this  side  of  the  chasm.  He  is  excessively 
wretched,  more  wretched  than  ever  before. 

He  lias  not  done  anything  bad.  He  only  wished  not 
to  be  obliged  to  pass  by  his  starving  mother  and  keep 


A  PERIOD  OF  DOUBT. 


317 


her  rubles  in  his  pocket.  And  how  conscientiously  has 
he  not  acted  !  He  assured  himself  first  by  a  careful  self- 
examination,  that  he  would  not  overstep  the  barriers  to 
satisfy  sensuous  impulses,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  great 
object;  so  he  himself  selected,  among  all  “the  useless 
lice,”  the  most  useless  of  all,  and  finally  determined, 
although  he  killed  the  woman,  to  take  only  so  much  as 
was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  object  nearest  to  him. 

But  it  is  not  the  old  woman  he  has  killed;  it  was  him¬ 
self,  his  own  eyo.  His  deed  has  grown  up  far  above  his 
head;  it  has  isolated  him  completely,  thrown  him 
wholly  back  into  himself.  The  secret  gnaws  him  to 
insanity,  and  the  agony  of  being  himself  “  a  louse,”  like 
all  the  others,  paralyzes  him. 

Scarcely  had  he  committed  the  murder  before  he 
began  to  feel  lonesome,  strange  to  himself,  and  doomed 
to  everlasting  dumbness.  He  it  is  who  will  nevermore 
be  able  to  talk  with  others.  Soon  after,  he  is  tormented 
by  an  insane  impulse  to  disclose  himself,  to  tell  all 
himself.  He  prefers  immediately  to  throw  all  that  he 
has  taken  into  the  canal;  he  has  no  idea  of  using  it, 
conceals  it  under  a  stone  in  a  building-lot.  He  does  not 
himself  understand  what  has  happened  to  him ;  but  he 
has  been  separated  from  his  past,  as  if  by  the  clip  of 
a  pair  of  scissors.  There  comes  a  moment  when  he 
almost  jumps  into  the  water,  to  make  an  end  of  all. 
On  his  associates  he  makes  the  impression  of  a  madman. 
But  he  falls  in  with  human  wretchedness  in  its  worst 
form  —  a  drunkard  who  dies ;  a  consumptive  widow  with 
a  nest  full  of  children,  without  bread ;  a  noble  young 
girl  who  has  been  compelled  to  sell  herself  to  get  food 
for  her  little  brothers  and  sisters ;  and  the  need  of 
showing  generosity,  of  helping,  restores  to  him,  for  a 
short  time,  faith  in  life.  Still,  this  short  rise  is  followed 


318 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


by  new  pangs.  The  thought  whether  the  others  did  not 
know  everything  tortures  him,  so  that  he  plays  an  en¬ 
tirely  useless  comedy  when,  towards  certain  people,  he 
acts  as  if  nothing  was  the  matter.  And  really  there  are 
some  who  are  on  the  track ;  one  who  has  suspected 
everything  and  completely  sees  through  him,  and  he  is 
a  genius  of  a  jurist,  an  examining  magistrate.  Still 
Raskolnikof  is  neither  arrested  nor  examined;  no,  what 
at  last  opens  his  lips  and  compels  him  to  surrender  him¬ 
self  is  a  purely  inward,  spiritual  movement.  Long  be¬ 
fore  it  gains  the  mastery,  it  presents  itself  to  him,  as 
the  moment  approaches  when  he  must  disclose  himself, 
and  he  even  draws  a  parallel  of  the  feelings  of  the 
advent  of  this  moment  with  his  earlier  perception  of 
the  necessity  that  the  hour  was  come  for  murdering  the 
old  woman.  Yet  this  feeling  is  continually  crossed  by 
the  feeling  of  growing  hate  towards  the  whole  world 
about  him ;  he  feels  a  murderous  hatred  towards  those 
m  regard  to  whom  he  suspects  or  feels  that  they  know 
his  secret.  When,  in  his  solitary  ponderings,  he  puts  to 
himself  the  questions  what,  under  these  or  those  given 
circumstances,  he  shall  do  in  order  not  to  be  trapped,  the 
outburst,  “  Then  I  shall  kill  him,”  is  the  constant  answer 
to  all  such  questions  that  arise.  Nay,  at  last,  he  discov¬ 
ers,  with  horror,  that  even  of  his  mother  and  sisters, 
who  have  always  been  so  dear  to  him,  he  thinks  now 
and  then  with  a  feeling  of  hate. 

And  this  hatred  and  all  this  anguish  have  their  root 
in  love.  If  only  he  had  not  loved  so  much,  all  this  would 
not  have  happened. 

If  his  soul  had  been  barren,  if  he  had  not  been  bold, 
magnanimous  and  earnest,  he  would  never  have  become 
a  murderer.  During  this  horrible  time  he  feels  more  and 
more  drawn  towards  the  young  girl  who  has  been  named 


GROWTH  OF  REPENTANCE. 


319 


before,  and  who  has  fallen  on  account  of  her  love  for  her 
little  brothers  and  sisters.  By  her  most  strenuous  exer¬ 
tions  she  could  not  earn  what  was  necessary  by  her 
daily  wages,  and  her  own  mother  had  driven  her  out 
into  the  street.  Pity  had  brought  him  into  relations 
with  her,  admiration  for  the  nobility  and  purity  of  her 
being  brings  him  to  seek  her  out,  for  not  a  drop  of  real 
unchastity  has  as  yet  entered  into  her  heart.  He  honors 
the  one  despised  by  the  world.  She  also  has  “  over¬ 
stepped  the  barriers,”  she  also  has  laid  her  hand  upon  a 
human  life,  her  own,  has  sacrificed  herself  and  sacrificed 
herself  uselessly ;  but  she  stands  spiritually  high  above 
him.  Little  by  little  she  becomes  his  conscience.  One 
day,  when  he  has  looked  for  a  long  time  silently  into  her 
tearful  face,  he  throws  himself  down  before  her  and 
kisses  her  feet. 

“  What  are  you  doing  ?  What  are  you  doing  ?  That 
to  me  ?  ” 

He  answers  :  “  Not  to  you  did  I  bow  down  —  I  bowed 
down  to  the  total  suffering  of  the  human  race.” 

It  is  Sonya’s  prayer  that  he  shall  himself  confess  his 
guilt,  “  take  his  martyrdom  upon  himself ;  ”  she  will 
never  leave  him,  will  accompany  him  in  his  exile  to 
Siberia  as  an  inmate  of  the  House  of  Correction.  He 
hesitates  a  long  time.  His  sister  also  urges  him  to  sur¬ 
render  himself :  she  sees  in  this  step  his  only  salvation 
from  the  self-consumption  into  which  he  has  fallen.  But 
when  she  uses  the  word  crime,  he  becomes  excited. 

“  That  I  have  killed  a  disgusting,  mischievous  louse,  an 
usurious  old  crone,  for  whose  death  one  ought  to  be 
forgiven  forty  sins,  a  creature  that  sucked  the  blood 
out  of  poor  folk,  —  that  a  crime  l”  —  “  Thou  hast  shed 
blood!”  breaks  in  the  sister  amazed.  —  “Blood!”  answers 
Raskolnikof.  “All  shed  it  —  it  flows  and  has  always 


320 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


flowed  on  the  earth  in  streams,  it  is  poured  out  like 
champagne,  and  people  are  crowned  for  it  on  the  Capitol 
and  then  called  the  benefactors  of  mankind  —  I  myself 
only  wished  for  the  good  and  would  have  done  a  hun¬ 
dred  thousand  good  deeds  for  this  one  blunder,  and  it 
was  not  even  a  blunder,  only  a  clumsy  act.  By  this 
blunder  all  I  wanted  was  to  put  myself  in  an  independent 
position,  make  the  first  step,  and  then  all  this  would 
have  been  compensated  by  a  proportionally  large  useful¬ 
ness.  But  I  have  not  been  able  to  take  the  first  step, 
because  I  am  a  milksop  !  That  is  the  whole  of  it.” 

Still,  in  the  long  run,  Sonya  is  stronger  than  he.  He 
cannot  withstand  the  prayer  of  the  strong  woman  in  all 
its  humility  and  unworthiness,  to  make  his  deed  known, 
and  the  novel  ends  with  Raskolnikof’s  self-accusation  at 
the  police-office :  “  It  was  I  who  murdered  the  old  regis¬ 
ter’s  widow  and  her  sister  with  an  axe  and  then  plun¬ 
dered  their  property  !  ” 

In  this  story  Dostoyevski  has  plainly  intended  to  give 
a  picture  of  the  times.  “  What  is  before  us  here,”  says 
the  examining  magistrate  Porfyrius  to  the  hero,  in  the 
third  part  of  the  book,  “  is,  evidently  enough,  a  fantastic, 
tragical  product  of  the  new  tendency  of  the  times ;  it  is 
a  deed  which  only  the  present  time  could  bring  forth, 
the  time  in  which  it  is  a  custom  to  repress  one’s  feelings 
and  to  give  utterance  to  phrases  like  this :  that  blood 
operates  refreshing ;  that  is  a  fantasy  which  comes  from 
books ;  it  is  a  heart  which  is  spasmodically  overstrained 
by  theories ;  it  is  a  determination  which  leads  to  crimes 
as  if  strange  feet  carried  him  thither.”  The  author 
evidently  has  political  ferments  in  view,  although  he 
takes  care  not  to  say  a  single  word  directly  about  poli¬ 
tics.  There  is  undoubtedly  contained  in  it  an  allusion 
to  the  murder  of  the  Tsar.  “  Still  it  is  well,”  Porfyrius 


A  SYMBOLICAL  DREAM. 


321 


says  to  Raskolnikof,  “that  it  was  only  such  a  wretched 
old  woman  whom  you  killed;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  your 
theory  had  taken  another  direction,  then  your  misdeed 
might  have  been  a  hundred  million  times  more  fright¬ 
ful.”  And  indirectly,  through  a  dream  which  Raskolni¬ 
kof  has,  while  he  is  brooding  over  thoughts  of  murder 
and  is  frightened  at  it,  there  is  a  description,  which,  it 
is  true,  is  not  anywhere  pointed  directly  at  the  Russian 
people,  but  which  undoubtedly  is  a  symbol  of  the  most 
sombre  representation  of  the  situation.  The  hero  sees 
in  his  dream  a  miserable,  emaciated,  light  brown  peas¬ 
ant-horse,  harnessed  to  a  very  large,  heavy  wagon,  which 
it  cannot  possibly  draw ;  but  the  horse  is  whipped  again 
and  again  by  the  rough  owner  of  the  wagon,  without 
mercy,  over  the  muzzle,  over  the  eyes,  first  with  one 
whip  and  then  with  three  at  a  time ;  the  horse  groans 
and  puffs,  can  scarcely  breathe,  pulls,  stops,  tries  to  pull 
again,  cannot  escape  from  the  storm  of  blows,  and  at 
last  begins,  to  the  general  laughter  of  the  men,  to  kick 
back.  The  horse  is  whipped  again  —  while  some  beat 
on  a  drum  in  addition,  one  sings  a  shameless  song,  and  a 
woman  contentedly  cracks  nuts  —  is  whipped  over  the 
muzzle  and  over  the  eyes.  When  even  several  heavy 
blows  with  a  wagon  pole  over  the  back  are  not  able  to 
drive  the  horse  forward,  the  owner  seizes  a  great  iron 
bar  and  gives  the  horse  a  blow  with  that.  The  horse 
tries  for  the  last  time  to  pull,  then  falls  down  on  the 
ground  and  breathes  his  last.  When  the  social  condition 
is  of  the  kind  described  here  symbolically,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  sanguinary  thoughts  spring  up  in  the  minds 
of  the  youth. 

Even  if  it  is  not  a  political  crime  which  Dostoyevski 
has  repi’esented,  it  is  a  crime  which  has  this  in  common 
with  the  political,  that  it  is  not  mean,  was  not  committed 


322 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


for  the  vulgar,  low  object  of  procuring  for  the  perpe¬ 
trator  greater  personal  profit,  but  was  in  a  certain  degree 
unselfish,  and,  what  is  most  important  above  all,  it  was 
committed  by  a  person  who  at  the  moment  of  the  crime 
does  not  harbor  a  doubt  as  to  his  right.  In  the  mean 
time,  if  we  compare  the  men  and  women  whom  in  recent 
years  we  have  seen  sentenced  in  Russia  for  intent  to 
commit  murder,  and  not  less  those  who  have  been 
executed  as  accessories  to  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar 
with  this  homicide,  then  the  contrast  is  striking.  Those 
persons  were  not  in  any  way  ruined  by  the  spiritual 
consequences  of  their  deed ;  they  had  as  conspirators  in 
and  after  the  moment  of  the  murder  been  in  full  accord 
with  their  inmost  being  ;  their  conviction  continued  to 
be  unshaken  and  unmoved  to  the  last.  If  they  had 
escaped  detection,  in  all  probability  they  would  have 
lived  to  the  end  of  their  lives  without  any  other  than 
peaceful  and  proud  thoughts  about  their  attempts  at  the 
murder  of  a  being  whose  extermination  they  regarded 
as  a  good  deed,  nay,  as  a  duty.  Easkolnikof,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  destroyed  by  the  consequences  of  the 
murder. 

Like  the  political  criminals,  he  started  from  a  certain 
fixed  principle,  which,  it  is  true,  is  not  mentioned  in  the 
book,  but  which,  nevertheless,  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
his  way  of  proceeding,  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 

This  principle,  which  simplicity  has  misunderstood 
and  Jesuitism  has  misused,  is  exactly  and  literally  sound. 
The  word  “  justifies  ”  indicates  that  a  good,  valuable  end 
is  meant.  He  has  a  good,  valuable  end  who  would 
maintain  or  produce  results  of  real  value. 

Suppose  that  one  could  obtain  his  good  end  only  by 
inflicting  suffering,  and  suppose  that  this  suffering  is 
less  than  that  which  will  be  produced  if  he  avoids 


TIIE  END  JUSTIFIES  THE  MEANS. 


323 


making  use  of  the  means.  Suppose,  for  example,  that 
a  man  wishes  the  good  of  his  fellow-citizens,  and  can 
arrive  at  his  end  only  by  removing  a  single  man  (it  may 
be  one  who  is  infected  with  a  contagious  disease,  or  a 
tyrant),  then  his  act  is  deserving  of  honor,  if  of  two 
evils  —  one  or  the  other  of  which  must  necessarily  be 
incurred  —  he  chooses  the  lesser.  The  objection  which 
lies  near  to  this,  that  he  cannot  foresee  the  results  of 
his  act,  signifies  nothing,  because  the  morality  depends 
upon  the  intent  and  not  upon  the  result.  In  our  daily 
life  no  one  entertains  any  doubt  as  to  the  soundness  of 
the  principle ;  we  are  quite  familiar  with  the  idea  that 
there  are  no  absolute  duties.  Society  teaches :  Thou 
must  not  kill,  but  adds :  Except  where  your  fatherland 
(the  good  end)  demands  it,  for  then  it  becomes  not  only 
allowable,  but  a  duty,  to  kill  the  largest  possible  number 
of  enemies.  Society  teaches :  It  is  a  bad  act  to  cut  off 
the  arms  or  legs  of  another,  but  adds :  when  the  physi¬ 
cian  amputates  an  arm  or  a  leg  to  save  the  life  of  the 
sick  or  wounded,  then  the  good  end  justifies  the  means. 

In  order  that  the  principle  shall  be  applicable,  the  fol¬ 
lowing  conditions  must  be  fulfilled  :  The  end  must  be 
good.  The  end  must  be  such  that  it  cannot  be  attained 
by  any  other  means  than  those  which  inflict  the  pain, 
nor  even  by  means  which  inflict  less  pain  than  those 
which  are  employed.  —  The  suffering  which  is  used  as  a 
means  must  be  less  than  that  which  would  exist  without 
the  use  of  the  means.  —  With  regard  to  all  these  points, 
the  typical  Russian  terrorist,  before  as  well  as  after  his 
onslaught  upon  the  course  of  events,  would  be  without 
any  concern  whatever.  Why,  then,  was  Raskolnikof  not 
so  also  ? 

Although  Dostoyevski  undoubtedly  was  not  in  the 
least  degree  partial  to  political  terrorists,  since  even 


324 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


political  progressionists  were  hateful  to  him,  he  has 
manifested  on  this  point  an  extraordinary  discrimina¬ 
tion.  He  does  not  particularly  deny  the  justice  of  Ras- 
kolnikof’s  reasoning,  but  shows  that  he  is  confused  as  to 
his  end,  uncertain  if  it  is  really  good  or  not.  In  desper¬ 
ation  he  says  to  Sonya,  a  month  after  the  deed,  that  he 
has  continually  been  uncertain.  When  he  examines  him¬ 
self  he  finds  that  in  fact  he  has  not  committed  murder  to 
support  his  mother  nor  to  become  a  benefactor  of  man¬ 
kind,  but  in  order  to  find  out  if  he  like  the  others  was  a 
“  louse,”  not  a  man,  that  is,  if  he  was  in  a  position  to 
overstep  the  barriers  or  not.  He  is  uncertain  about  his 
end  and  uncertain  about  his  inward  authority  to  pursue 
this  indefinite  end,  which,  according  to  his  own  theory, 
only  the  elect  are  at  liberty  to  use  all  means  to  attain. 
When  he  for  a  whole  day  has  tortured  himself  with 
the  question  whether  Napoleon  would  have  done  such 
an  act,  he  already  felt  dimly  that  he  was  not  a 
Napoleon. 

Therefore  he  was  wholly  overwhelmed  by  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  the  deed.  He  wished  only  to  kill  an  old 
monster ;  but  that  was  hardly  done  before  necessity  com¬ 
pelled  him,  to  escape  detection,  to  kill  a  poor,  kindly 
being  who  had  never  done  harm  to  any  mortal,  nay,  had 
continually  been  a  sacrifice  for  others.  Since  then  he 
has  even  been  obliged  to  recognize  Lisavieta’s  spiritual 
kinship  to  Sonya,  whom  he  respects  so  greatly.  He 
says  somewhere,  “  Oh,  how  I  hate  this  wretched  old 
woman !  I  believe  I  could  strike  her  down  once  more 
if  she  awakened  to  life.  But  the  poor  Lisavieta !  Why 
must  she  come  in !  Strange  that  I  almost  not  at  all 
think  of  her,  just  as  if  I  had  not  killed  her !  Lisavieta ! 
Sonya!  ...  Ye  poor  things,  ye  mild  women  with  timid 
eyes,  ...  ye  dear  women,  .  .  .  why  do  ye  not  weep  ? 


RASKOLNIKOF' S  CON  VERSION. 


325 


why  do  ye  not  groan  ?  .  .  .  They  sacrifice  everything 
with  their  mild  and  quiet  looks.” 

Yet  far  more  than  the  murder  of  Lisavieta,  which  had 
not  been  wished  for,  the  fear  of  being  arrested  tortured 
him,  and  the  system  of  dissimulation  and  denial  and 
lying,  in  which  he  involves  himself.  His  reason  is  not 
solid  enough  to  endure  it,  and,  until  he  confesses,  he  is 
continually  on  the  verge  of  insanity.  In  an  epilogue 
which  takes  place  in  Siberia,  Dostoyevski  then  suffers 
Raskolnikof’s  defiant  and  yet  troubled  nature  to  be  at 
once  dissolved  in  tenderness  and  strengthened  in  spirit 
by  the  faithful,  enduring  love  of  Sonya.  Raskolnikof 
is  an  “  infidel,”  but  Sonya  a  believer.  Even  before 
Raskolnikof  has  recognized  his  guilt,  there  is  an  affect¬ 
ing  scene  where  Sonya  reads  aloud  to  him  from  the  New 
Testament,  —  a  scene  where  a  tallow  candle  in  the  bat¬ 
tered  candlestick  in  the  poor  room  at  once  shines  upon 
a  murderer,  a  fallen  woman,  and  the  gospel  between 
them,  —  a  truly  Christian  scene,  stamped  with  genius. 
In  the  epilogue,  for  which  Dostoyevski  has  plainly  wished 
to  make  use  of  his  experiences  in  Siberia,  his  religious 
convictions,  direct  and  doctrinal,  make  their  appearance. 
As  I  have  heard  a  young  Russian  lady  express  it,  we 
very  often  in  reading  Dostoyevski  have  a  feeling  that  the 
characters  which  he  has  created  are  more  profound  than 
the  author  himself.  He  was  not  capable  of  understand¬ 
ing  the  scope  of  his  own  work. 

If  we  should  now  study  the  subordinate  characters 
only  approximately  with  the  same  care  with  which  the 
character  of  the  chief  person  has  been  examined,  we 
shall  find  that  they,  almost  without  exception,  ten  in 
number  as  they  are,  stand  on  a  level  with  the  hero  by 
the  force  and  truth  with  which  they  are  drawn,  and  that 
all  stand  in  some  relation  to  him.  There  is  no  super- 


326 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


fluous  person  in  the  book.  Among  the  most  admirably 
conceived  characters  are  the  examining  magistrate  Por- 
fyrius,  a  legal  genius,  and  the  landed  proprietor  Svidri- 
ga'ilof,  a  very  complex  nature,  a  voluptuary,  who  is  in 
love  with  Raskolnikof  s  sister,  and  who  pursues  her.  He 
is  a  man  of  intellect,  has  an  excellent  head,  and,  although 
he  has  one  or  more  unrepented  murders  on  his  conscience, 
he  possesses  both  courage  and  sense  of  honor  in  his  way. 
As  the  murderer  from  selfishness,  by  numerous  details 
in  regard  to  his  way  of  acting  and  thinking,  he  forms  a 
contrast  to  the  hero  of  the  book,  who  writhes  under 
Svidrigailof’s  contention  that  they  have  one  certain 
characteristic  in  common. 

Dostoyevski’s  delineation  of  character  here  is  of  the 
first  rank ;  it  is  profound,  and  bold.  Nevertheless, 
after  the  manner  of  Dickens,  it  leaves  almost  the  whole 
of  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  if  not  untouched, 
yet  undescribed.  In  this  domain,  however,  the  poet 
does  not  escape  the  paradoxical ;  thus  the  morally  irre¬ 
proachable  fallen  woman  reminds  us  more  of  an  anti¬ 
thesis  in  human  form  by  Victor  Hugo  than  of  a  real 
person. 

His  aversion  to  describing  the  natural  sensual  life  is 
all  the  more  impressive  since  here,  as  in  most  of  the 
author’s  other  books,  he  dwells  on  unnatural,  turbid 
appetites.  We  notice  Svidrigailof’s  hideous  passion  for 
young  girls.  And  we  compare  the  amazing  inquisition 
in  “  The  Possessed,”  where  Shatof  questions  Stavrogin 
if  it  is  true  that  in  St.  Petersburg  he  belonged  to  a 
secret  society  which  had  for  its  object  the  satisfaction  of 
unnatural  lust,  if  he  has  really  said  that  the  Marquis 
de  Sade  could  go  to  school  to  him,  and  if  he  has 
debauched  and  misused  children.1 

*  Nihilister  (Danish  translation),  i.  319. 


DOSTO YEVSKI’S  STYLE. 


327 


It  is  evident  that  Dostoyevski’s  fancy  frequently 
turned  on  such  unnatural  inclinations,  just  because, 
according  to  his  train  of  reasoning,  there  is  no  room 
left  for  a  sound  sensuousness.  His  inclination  to  de¬ 
scribe  bodily  sufferings,  the  dwelling  greatly  on  cruel¬ 
ties,  are  suggestive  of  unnatural  desires.  It  is  peculiar 
that  Turgenief  again  and  again  returns  to  the  compari¬ 
son  between  Dostoyevski  and  De  Sade.  Quite  evidently 
it  is  very  much  in  consequence  of  his  dislike  to  see  his 
hateful  rival  installed  as  a  hero,  but  also  it  is  plain  that 
it  was  Turgenief’s  conviction  that  there  is  to  be  found 
here  physiologically  and  psychologically  a  real  kinship.1 

Thus  much  is  clear  at  all  events,  that  with  Dosto¬ 
yevski’s  gifts  there  was  a  perverse  nervousness. 

However  high  the  delineation  of  character  stands  in 
“Crime  and  Punishment,”  the  book  suffers  from  the 
imperfections  of  the  narrative  style.  The  portions  in 
dialogue  are  immeasurably  the  best.  As  soon  as  the 
author  himself  begins  to  talk,  art  ceases.  Dostoyevski 
was  not  able,  like  Turgenief,  to  acquire  the  French  art 
of  narration ;  what  he  appropriated  to  himself  from 
them  was  their  ideal  of  humanity,  a  national,  funda¬ 
mental  view,  which  is  akin  to  that  of  Louis  Blanc  and 
of  Victor  Hugo  in  his  later  years. 

Though  an  author  of  such  a  high  rank,  he  was  an 
artist  of  a  low  rank.  He  allowed  all  his  writings  to  be 
printed  as  they  ran  off  from  his  pen,  without  revision  of 
any  kind  whatever,  to  say  nothing  of  recasting  them. 
He  did  not  trouble  himself  to  give  them  the  highest 
possible  degree  of  perfection  by  condensation  or  prun¬ 
ing,  but  only  worked  as  a  journalist  works,  and  is  there¬ 
fore  universally  too  prolix. 

Thus  so  far  as  this,  his  best  work,  is  concerned,  it  is 
1  See  especially  Turgenief's  letter  to  Saltykof  of  September  24, 1882. 


328 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


clear  that  lie  in  the  first  part  had  not  known  anything 
at  all  about  the  treatise  which  in  the  second  part  he 
states  that  Raskolnikof  had  written  about  his  theory. 
Certain  expressions  in  the  first  part  are  even  at  variance 
with  what  the  hero  must  have  written  in  such  a  treatise. 
Moreover,  it  is  very  little  in  harmony  with  the  modern 
art  of  narration  when  in  numerous  places  in  the  novel 
the  author  uses  such  turns  as :  “  Later  we  learn  that 
Svidrigailof  that  evening  also  had  made  a  visit,”  or 
“  When  he  afterwards ,  long  afterwards,  remembered  this 
time,  it  was  clear  to  him  that  his  consciousness  must 
have  been  confused,”  or  “  Afterwards  it  was  wonderful 
to  Sonya  that  she  thus  at  once  had  seen,”  etc.  By  such 
turns  the  author  strives  to  fill  up  the  gaps  and  omis¬ 
sions  in  the  descriptions.  Somewhere  Dostoyevski  even 
writes  with  the  genuine  olden-time  naiveté:  “We  will 
temporarily  leave  the  whole  line  of  thought  by  which 
Raskolnikof  reaches  this  result;  besides  we  have  already 
anticipated  it  too  much.  Yet  we  add  only ,  that  the 
actual  material  difficulties  of  the  undertaking  played 
only  a  weak  part  in  his  mind.”  Anticipations  and 
excuses  for  anticipations  have  just  as  little  place  in  a 
novel  as  gaps  and  gap-stoppers. 

It  is  already  seen  from  “  Crime  and  Punishment  ”  in 
what  sense  Dostoyevski  can  be  said  to  be  the  author  of 
the  proletariats.  As  no  one  else  he  has  known  and 
understood  the  proletariat  both  of  intelligence  and  of 
ignorance. 

His  chief  characteristic,  -when  he  presents  it,  is  a  kind 
of  psychological  clairvoyance,  which  deserts  him  when 
he  describes  the  upper  classes.  (See,  e.  g.,  the  Prince 
in  “  The  Injured  and  Oppressed.”)  The  force  and 
extent  of  this  clairvoyance  is  especially  traced  where 
the  healthy  spiritual  condition  borders  upon  the  domain 


Ills  TREATMENT  OF  “ MORAL  FEVER.” 


329 


of  insanity.  Towards  the  human  spiritual  condition  lie 
has  the  sure  insight  of  a  physician  for  the  insane,  but 
it  acts  with  him,  as  sometimes  with  such  physicians, 
that  the  habit  of  constantly  having  spiritual  abnormi¬ 
ties  before  him  leads  him  to  see  the  abnormal  every¬ 
where,  and  by  degrees  disturbs  the  equilibrium  of  his 
own  mind. 

He  likes  to  take  his  stand  on  the  dividing  line  which 
separates  rational  trains  of  thought  from  the  exalted,  and 
proper  modes  of  action  from  the  criminal.  From  the 
narrow  and  low  embankment  he  looks  on  both  sides  and 
never  forgets  to  call  the  reader’s  attention  to  how  nar- 
rmv  and  low  the  difference  in  reality  is  between  health 
and  disease,  right  and  wrong.  With  a  peculiar  master¬ 
ship  he  depicts  the  intellectual  dizziness  which  makes 
men  rush  headlong  into  a  gulf  of  crime  or  sacrifice.  He 
knows,  as  no  other  person  knows,  the  irresistible  attrac¬ 
tion  of  gulfs. 

As  a  judge  of  spiritual  life  he  is  wholly  pathological. 
The  perpetual  sensitiveness,  which  is  the  result  of  his 
epileptic  nature,  is  also  his  strength.  His  own  bad 
health,  his  nervous  tremors,  his  hallucinations,  his  fits, 
pass  through  into  the  persons  whom  he  describes.  The 
horror  which  oppressed  him  when  he  first  received  the 
sentence  of  death,  and  afterwards  when  he  faced  the 
punishment  of  the  lash,  meets  one  in  the  attitude  of  his 
principal  characters  in  the  face  of  punishment  (Raskol- 
nikof,  a  number  of  persons  in  “  The  Dead  House,” 
Dmitri  in  “The  Brothers  Karamazof”),  most  distinctly 
perhaps  in  “  The  Idiot  ”  (Prince  Myshkin),  where  the 
hero,  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  book,  exhibits  to  his 
valet  all  the  horrors  of  the  man  condemned  to  death. 
It  is  developed  here  that  the  putting  to  death  in  pursu¬ 
ance  of  a  sentence  of  a  court  is  disproportionately  more 


330 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


odious  than  the  most  dreadful  murder,  and  it  is  added,  in 
conclusion  :  “  Perhaps  there  is  a  man  to  whom  a  sentence 
of  death  has  been  read  only  to  torment  him.”  There  is 
always  this  background  of  agony  and  terror. 

The  greater  number  of  Dostoyevski’s  characters  are 
visionary.  Thus  there  are  in  “The  Brothers  Kara- 
mazof”  alone,  the  youngest  of  the  brothers,  Aliosha, 
who  reads  in  the  souls  of  others  and  sees  what  is  hidden, 
and  the  noble  monk  Zossima,  the  saint  of  the  book,  who 
foresees  the  temptation  of  Dmitri  to  parricide,  and  in 
the  Christian  mysticism  casts  himself  on  his  knees 
before  him,  as  before  the  most  sinful,  and  therefore  the 
nearest  to  salvation.1  The  hero  in  “  The  Idiot,”  Prince 
Myshkin,  is  epileptic,  and  so  is  the  murderer  Smerdiakof, 
in  “  The  Brothers  Karamazof.” 

Since  Dostoyevski’s  strength  is  in  pathology,  it  is  quite 
natural  that  his  three  principal  books  should  describe 
criminal  natures.  We  find  them  in  “  The  Brothers 
Karamazof,”  as  well  as  in  “  The  Dead  House ;  ”  but 
“  Crime  and  Punishment,”  nevertheless,  contains  the  typ¬ 
ical  example  of  his  masterpiece  of  psychological  analy¬ 
sis  ;  it  unfolds  the  crime  in  its  whole  growth,  from  the 
first  cell  until  it  bears  its  last  fruit.  As  a  judge  of  the 
diseased  condition  of  the  mind,  as  an  author  of  the 
“  moral  fever,”  Dostoyevski  has  not  his  equal. 

It  is  natural  that  in  an  author  who  is  so  exclusively 
psychological,  the  natural  environments  play  almost  no 
part.  What  he  needs  of  a  landscaj^e  is  the  strip  of  the 
horizon,  the  glimpse  of  the  blue  sky,  which  is  visible 
from  a  garret  in  the  suburbs  of  a  great  city,  or  through 
the  panes  placed  high  up  in  a  prison  cell.  With  him  it 
is  all  repartee,  conversation ;  to  that  extent  everything 
is  dramatic. 

1  Dostoyevski:  Les  Fréres  Karamazof,  by  Halperme-Kani insky, 
ii.  p.  223  and  i.  p.  38. 


DOSTOYEVSKI  AS  DIALECTICIAN. 


331 


Dostoyevski  is  the  greatest  dialectician  among  the 
Russian  authors.  His  great  strength  is  his  amazing  skill 
of  question  and  answer  in  dialogue.  The  soliloquy  — 
and  he  is  never  tired  of  employing  it  —  analyzes  a  mat¬ 
ter  from  its  different  aspects  in  the  most  delicate  details. 
Dialogue,  with  him,  is  a  kind  of  inquisition,  a  continued 
contest  between  men,  who  seek  to  wrest  their  secrets 
from  each  other.  De  Vogue’s  expression  is  very  apt? 
when  lie  says  that  he  combines  the  disposition  of  a  com¬ 
passionate  sister  with  the  abilities  of  a  chief  inquisitor. 
The  same  author  has  also  very  truly  said  of  him  that  his 
characters  are  never  shown  to  us  in  a  tranquil  state, 
obeying  the  rule  of  reason.  One  of  them  never  sits 
quietly  at  a  table,  occupied  with  one  thing  or  another. 
It  is  said:  “He  was  lying  upon  the  sofa,  with  closed 
eyes,  but  not  sleeping.  ...  He  went  out  on  the  street 
without  knowing  where  he  was.  .  .  .  He  stood  immova¬ 
ble,  with  his  look  persistently  fixed  on  a  point  out 
into  vacancy.”  They  never  eat,  but  they  drink  tea  at 
night.  They  almost  never  sleep,  and  when  they  do  they 
dream.1 

Nothing  is  more  foreign  to  them  and  their  author 
than  the  code  of  honor  of  Western  Europe,  as  it  is  most 
clearly  stated  in  the  dramas  of  Calderon,  and  still  exists 
as  a  legacy  from  the  age  of  chivalry  in  the  Latin  and 
German  society.  In  the  world  which  Dostoyevski  opens 
up  to  us,  the  most  insulting  charges,  nay,  a  blow  in  the 
face,  are  no  disgrace  to  a  man.  They  speak  about  a 
flogging  as  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  In  a 
Christian  spirit,  and  in  perfect  accord  with  the  national 
mysticism,  suffering  is  regarded  almost  as  a  blessing. 
One  of  Dostoyevski’s  characters  says,  “  I  am  afraid  that 
I  am  not  worthy  of  my  torture.”  The  torture  is  con- 
1  De  Vogue:  Le  Roman  Russe,  p.  257. 


332 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


sidered  as  a  kind  of  distinction.  It  always  ransoms 
somebody  or  something.  When  the  torture  is  endured, 
the  guilt  which  caused  it  is  expiated. 

Still  more :  suffering  in  this  world  turned  upside 
down  is  a  temptation.  Shatof  says  to  Stavrogin  (Ni¬ 
hilister,  i.  320) :  “  Do  you  know  why  you  made  this 
low  and  shameful  marriage  ?  ...  You  married  from 
a  desire  to  feel  pain,  pangs  of  conscience,  from  moral 
luxury.  It  was  a  nervous  irritation.”  And  this  con¬ 
ception  is  not  exceptional. 

Therefore  it  is  that  the  extremely  significative  desire 
to  live  which  is  purely  characteristic  of  the  Byzantine 
Christianity  becomes  the  .  principle  of  evil  with  Dos- 
toyevski.  This  is  what  he  has  mystically  embodied  in 
the  three  brothers  Karamazof.  The  atheistical  Ivan 
says  to  his  younger  brother,  “  Do  you  know  that  if  I  had 
lost  my  faith  in  life,  .  .  .  still  I  would  not  have  killed 
myself,  I  would  live  in  spite  of  everything !  I  have 
lifted  the  enchanted  cup  to  my  lips,  I  shall  not  let  it 
go  till  I  have  drained  it  to  the  dregs.  .  .  .  More  than 
once  I  have  asked  myself  if  there  is  a  pain  in  the  world 
which  is  able  to  conquer  this  unquenchable  thirst,  this 
thirst  for  life,  which,  perhaps,  is  unseemly ;  but  I  do  not 
think  that  before  my  thirtieth  year  any  such  pain  has 
been  given  to  me.  I  know  very  well  that  this  thirst  for 
life  is  what  the  moralists,  especially  those  who  write 
verse,  the  consumptive  people,  who  always  have  a  cold 
in  the  head,  call  low  and  contemptible.  It  is  also  true 
that  this  thirst  for  life  is  a  trait  which  is  characteristic 
in  the  Karamazof  family :  to  live !  cost  what  it  will ! 
It  is  also  in  you.  But  what  is  there  low  in  it !  ”  1 

Although  the  thirst  for  life  is  an  evil,  yet  suffering, 
without  something  more,  is  not  a  good.  Dostoyevski, 
1  Les  Freres  Karamazof,  i.  205. 


HIS  VIEW  OF  THE  USE  OF  EVIL. 


333 


with  all  his  (unconsciously  cruel)  dwelling  on  torture, 
and  the  enjoyment  of  torture,  is  too  gentle  and  ner¬ 
vously  weak  and  shattered  not  to  melt  in  pity  thereat. 
Nay,  pity  is  a  kind  of  religion  with  him,  and  it  some¬ 
times  conflicts  with  his  system,  his  faith  in  God,  his 
Christianity.  He  is  dialectician  enough  to  evolve  a 
fearful  attack  upon  faith  in  God  from  suffering  upon 
earth.  We  read,  for  instance,  Ivan’s  enumeration  of 
all  the  cruelties  of  men  towards  defenceless  animals, 
little  children ;  his  busying  himself  with  all  the  refine¬ 
ments  of  cruelties :  a  little  horse,  whipped  over  the 
eyes ;  a  girl  seven  years  old,  who  is  whipped  with 
thorns ;  a  girl  of  five,  who,  on  a  cold  night  in  winter,  is 
locked  up  in  a  closet,  and  whose  face  is  smeared  with 
filth,  which  she  is  made  to  eat;  a  serf  boy  eight  years 
old,  whom  a  general  suffers  to  be  torn  to  pieces  by  his 
dogs,  —  all  this  without  the  intervention  of  God,  —  and 
we  ponder  over  his  conclusion :  It  is  possible  that  all 
this  fits  into  the  heavenly  harmony  of  the  Almighty; 
but  I  do  not  recognize  it ;  it  counterbalances  for  me  not 
a  single  tear  of  a  child. 

The  young  hero  Aliosha,  on  Dostoyevski’s  behalf, 
disposes  of  this  doubt  with  the  answer,  “  There  is  a 
Being  who  can  forgive  all,  for  he  himself  has  poured  out 
his  innocent  blood  for  all  men  and  things.” 

The  argument  is  not  much  better  than  that  which,  in 
another  place  in  the  book  (ii.  209),  the  devil  in  a  hallu¬ 
cination  uses  with  Ivan  :  “  What  pleasure  can  one  have 
without  suffering  ?  It  would  all  be  like  an  unending 
ceremonial,  —  holy,  but  unendingly  tedious.” 

With  a  very  extraordinary  sublimity  and  greatness, 
Dostoyevski  has  developed  the  religious  problem,  as  it 
appeared  to  him,  in  the  ingenious  poem,  “  The  Chief 
Inquisitor,”  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Ivan,  and 


334 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


for  whose  sake  alone  “The  Brothers  Karamazof  ”  ought 
to  be  translated 

Christ  lias  come  back  upon  the  earth.  He  shows  him¬ 
self  at  a  great  auto-da-fé  in  Seville,  where  hundreds  of 
heretics  are  burned  in  his  honor,  gently  walking  about 
in  the  ashes  of  the  fire.  All  know  him,  the  common 
people  throng  around  him,  he  blesses  them.  Then  the 
chief  inquisitor,  an  old  man  of  ninety,  causes  him  to  be 
arrested,  imprisoned,  and  placed  in  a  cell  used  for  those 
who  are  condemned  to  the  stake,  and  there  visits  him  in 
the  night.  A  conversation  then  follows  between  the 
inquisitor  and  Christ,  or  rather  a  long  monologue  of  the 
former,  which  is  not  interrupted  by  any  answer, — a 
monologue  in  which  the  cardinal  shows  the  Saviour  how 
wrong  he  has  been  in  coming  again  and  disturbing  the 
work  of  his  believers,  and  proclaims  to  him  his  fixed 
intention  of  letting  him  be  burned  alive  as  a  heretic 
in  order  to  bring  peace  to  bis  work.  The  inquisitor 
unfolds  to  Christ  the  faults,  the  political  faults,  he 
committed  in  his  lifetime.  The  most  important  of  all 
was  that  he  did  not  accept  the  offer  of  the  tempter  to 
change  stones  to  bread,  but  showed  himself  to  men  with 
empty  hands.  He  thereby  made  it  possible  for  them 
who  rise  up  against  him  to  rally  about  the  watchword : 
“  Give  them  first  meat,  if  thou  wilt  that  they  shall  be 
good.”  “We,”  says  the  cardinal,  “give  them  bread.  We 
understand  how  to  lie,  and  we  speak  in  thy  name.  And 
they  end  by  bringing  us  their  freedom,  laying  it  down 
at  our  feet,  and  asking  us  for  chains  and  bread.  There 
are  only  three  forces  on  earth  which  can  keep  that 
humanity  in  check,  which  is  really  so  weak  and  yet 
so  rebellious,  and  these  are :  the  miracle,  the  mystery, 
and  the  authority.  And  thou  hast  rejected  these  forces 
to  proclaim  a  freedom  which  it  was  particularly  neces- 


HIS  LATER  YEARS. 


335 


sary  to  confiscate,  and  a  love  with  which  mankind  can¬ 
not  be  governed ;  therefore  it  has  been  necessary  to 
correct  thy  work,  to  correct  it  by  the  power  of  Rome 
and  with  the  sword  of  Cæsar,  and  make  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  *of  progressive  spirits  unhappy,  extermi¬ 
nate  them  when  it  was  possible,  in  order  to  secure  the 
weal  of  untold  millions.  To-morrow  I  shall  have  you 
burned.  Dixi.” 

Christ  does  not  answer  a  word,  but  looks  into  the  eyes 
of  the  inquisitor  with  a  mild  but  firm  gaze,  then  he 
quietly  moves  his  face  close  to  the  inquisitor’s,  and  kisses 
the  old  man  on  his  bloodless  mouth. 

Then  the  old  man  trembles,  opens  the  cell  door,  and 
says,  “  Go  your  way,  and  come  again  never  more  .  .  . 
never,  never  more  !  ” 

This  poem  is  condemned  in  the  novel  as  the  offspring 
of  an  atheistical  train  of  thought,  but  even  the  compo. 
sition  shows  with  what  seriousness  and  versatility  Dos- 
toyevski  has  asked  the  question  and  tested  the  different 
answers. 

The  period  from  1871  to  1881  was  the  most  peaceful 
in  Dostoyevski’s  life.  His  second  marriage  was  instru¬ 
mental  in  introducing  order  in  his  household  affairs. 
He  eclipsed  in  popularity  all  the  writers  who  were  at 
first  regarded  as  his  equals,  especially  causing  Pi'semski’s 
reputation  to  grow  pale  in  comparison.  But  he  also 
eclipsed  Turgenief,  who  had  so  long  been  regarded  as 
his  superior.  All  the  ill  will  which  this  great  author 
had  stirred  up  among  the  Slavophiles  and  radicals  enured 
for  a  long  time  to  the  advantage  of  Hostoyevski.  When, 
in  1880,  the  unveiling  of  Pushkin’s  statue  in  Moscow 
was  the  occasion  of  a  great  national  literary  festivity, 
at  which  the  greatest  authors  made  speeches,  Turgenief’s 
was  applauded,  but  Dostoyevski’s  excited  raptures  and 


386 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


sobs ;  and  when  he  had  finished,  he  was  carried  about  in 
triumph.1 

In  his  monthly  periodical,  “  The  Diary  of  an  Author,” 
he  now  preached  faith  in  Russia  as  a  duty  and  attacked 
with  equal  bitterness  the  Russian  “  intelligence  ”  and 
the  culture  of  Western  Europe,  which  had  become  to 
him  the  culture  of  Babel  and  of  Sodom.  He  was  thus 
regarded  as  the  greatest  popular  author  of  Russia  at  the 
time  of  his  death.  The  sorrow  at  his  loss  was  a  national 
sorrow ;  forty  thousand  men  followed  him  to  his  grave. 
The  Russian  students  sent  an  open  letter  to  his  widow, 
in  which  appears,  among  other  things :  — 

“  Dostoyevski’s  ideals  will  never  be  forgotten ;  from 
generation  to  generation  we  shall  hand  them  down  as 
a  precious  inheritance  from  our  great,  beloved  teacher. 
.  .  .  His  memory  will  never  be  extinguished  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Russian  youth,  and,  as  we  love  him,  we 
will  also  teach  our  children  to  honor  and  love  the  man 
for  whom  we  now  so  bitterly  and  disconsolately  mourn. 
.  .  .  Dostoyevski  will  always  stand  bright  before  us  in 
our  battle  of  life ;  we  shall  always  remember  that  it  was 
he  who  taught  us  the  possibility  of  preserving  the  purity 
of  the  soul  undefiled  in  every  position  of  life  and  in  all 
circumstances.” 

It  was,  as  we  see,  the  Slavophile  direction  of  thought 
which  spoke  the  last  word  at  his  death. 

1  The  most  of  Dostoyevski’s  novels  have  been  translated  into 
Danish,  as  well  as  Pisemski’s  excellent  novel,  “  Thousand  Souls.” 
“  Crime  and  Punishment  ”  has  been  translated  into  English,  and 
published  by  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  New  York. 


VII. 


Russia’s  last  great  realist  and  dreamer,  Count  Leo 
Nikolayevitch  Tolstoi,  is  more  powerful  than  Turge- 
nief  and  more  healthy  than  Ifostoyevski.  He  ap¬ 
proaches  Turgenief  in  pessimism  ;  in  Slavic  piety  and 
faith  in  the  Russian  common  people  he  approaches 
Dostoyevski.  In  common  with  the  latter,  he  has  a  dis¬ 
trust  of  the  culture  of  Western  Europe,  only  he  extends 
it  so  as  to  embrace  all  civilization. 

His  fancy  is  far-reaching,  epic.  So  far  as  he  is  con¬ 
cerned,  the  proposition  is  true  that  the  novel  is  the 
modern  epic.  He  has  not  only  like  other  authors  given 
a  phase  of  culture  and  the  life  of  so-called  good  society 
in  and  out  of  the  capitals  of  Russia,  but  in  his  greatest 
work  he  has  depicted  an  age,  an  army,  a  people,  and  a 
historic  catastrophe  of  the  first  rank,  Napoleon’s  cam¬ 
paign  and  defeat  on  Russian  soil. 

He  was  born  August  28,  1828,  on  the  estate  Yiisnaya 
Polyana,  in  the  department  of  Tula,  lost  his  father  in 
1837,  went  to  the  University  of  Kazan  in  1843,  where 
he  studied  jurisprudence  and  the  Oriental  languages,  but 
returned  to  his  estate  at  the  end  of  three  years.  In 
1851  he  served  in  the  army  of  the  Caucasus,  where  he 
made  his  first  essay  as  an  author,  took  part  in  the 
Crimean  War,  was  in  the  battle  at  Tcliernaya  and  the 
siege  of  Sevastopol,  and,  on  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
obtained  his  discharge.  In  1857  he  made  his  first 
journey  abroad,  visiting  Germany  and  Italy.  On  his 

337 


838 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


estate,  where  he  came  in  close  contact  with  the  common 
people  and  studied  their  natures,  he  established  a  free 
school  and  busied  himself  in  all  directions  with  meditat¬ 
ing  on  what  could  and  ought  to  be  done  for  the  common 
people.  He  married  in  1862.  He  first  contemplated 
writing  a  great  novel  about  the  “  Decembrists  ”  (the 
heroes  of  the  revolts  of  1825),  but  abandoned  this  idea 
for  another,  of  which  “War  and  Peace”  was  the  result 
(1865-1868).  “Anna  Karenina”  followed  in  1878,  and 
later,  novels,  plays,  sketches  of  the  people,  confessions. 

It  is  indicative  of  the  kind  of  Tolstoi’s  faith  in  reality 
that  lie  began  as  an  observer  of  himself,  and  an  autobi- 
ograplier.  Turgenief  keeps  himself  wholly  in  the  back¬ 
ground  in  his  writings.  When  we  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  author  himself  in  Dostoyevski’s  works  it  is  in  those 
characters  which  wholly  sacrifice  themselves  for  others, 
and  generally  in  turn  are  despised,  because  they  lack 
all  the  fascinating  equalities  with  which  the  more  ordi¬ 
nary  persons  are  adorned.  Thus  it  is  with  the  narrator 
of  the  story,  Ivan  Petrovitch,  in  “The  Injured  and 
Oppressed.”  There  is  a  gleam  of  the  same  thing  even 
in  old  Makar  Alekseyevitch,  in  “Poor  Folk.”  His  de¬ 
scription  of  himself  in  “The  Dead  House”  is  patheti¬ 
cally  modest,  even  humble,  although  the  author  lets  it  be 
understood  that  the  narrator  is  regarded  by  the  others 
as  an  uncommon  person.  But  when  he  uses  himself  as 
a  model,  Dostoyevski  always  draws  a  person  of  the  most 
extraordinary  goodness.  In  his  novel,  “The  Idiot,”  he 
has  presented  himself  in  the  guise  of  the  hero,  Prince 
Myshkin.  Myshkin  is  a  genius  of  the  greatest  ability, 
a  child  in  simplicity  and  purity  of  heart.  For  four  and 
twenty  years  he  has  been  afflicted  with  that  incurable 
disease,  epilepsy,  so  that  he  acquiesces  with  mildness 
when,  even  although  he  is  in  possession  of  all  his  facul- 


TOLSTOI. 


339 


ties,  he  is  treated  as  one  who  is  sick  or  insane,  one  who 
is  on  the  point  of  “  having  a  convulsive  fit.”  He  lias  no 
tine  manners,  is  not  able  to  husband  his  ideas,  and 
therefore,  as  he  himself  says,  uses  words  which  are  not 
suitable  for  the  lofty  thoughts  he  would  express,  and,  as 
it  were,  disgrace  them.  But,  notwithstanding  this, 
there  is  no  one  in  his  circle  of  acquaintances,  not  one, 
who  is  worthy  of  such  words.  Dostoyevski  proclaims 
that  through  the  mouth  of  a  young  girl :  “  There  is  no 
one  here  who  is  worthy  of  your  soul,  your  heart,  nay, 
not  even  of  your  little  finger.  You  are  more  honest 
than  all  of  us,  nobler  and  wiser  than  any  one  of  us.” 

If  Tolstoi  begins  by  describing  himself,  it  is  because 
he  wants  to  describe  what  he  knows.  He  relates  the 
life  of  his  childhood  and  youth  (“  Childhood,”  “  Youth  ”)  ; 
then,  indirectly,  but  in  a  transparent  manner,  his  expe¬ 
riences  as  an  officer  in  the  Caucasus  (“  The  Cossacks  ”), 
his  memories  of  war  (“  Pictures  of  War,”  “  Sevastopol  ”). 
In  every  place  where  he  gives  a  picture  of  himself  the 
criticisms  of  himself  and  the  use  of  irony  towards  him¬ 
self  are  palpable.  He  unveils  his  own  weaknesses, 
shows  us  his  own  follies.  He  never  makes  the  impres¬ 
sion  of  an  ideal  figure.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  he 
who  less  often  than  others  succeeds  in  winning  hearts, 
and  who  does  not  deserve  any  other  happiness  than  that 
which  falls  to  his  lot.  In  “  The  Cossacks,”  his  Olyenin, 
like  Petschorin  with  Lermontof,  is  a  Russian  officer 
of  the  elegant  world,  living  in  the  Caucasus.  But  while 
Petschorin,  in  spite  of  all  his  coldness,  everywhere 
meets  with  a  warm  reception  from  the  women,  Olyenin, 
from  his  passionate  love  cherished  for  a  long  time  for  a 
child  of  nature,  a  Cossack  girl,  reaps  only  such  ill  will 
and  contempt  that  she  would  not  even  turn  her  head 
towards  him  when  he  went  away.  In  Lermontof’s  book 


340 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


the  highly  cultured  man  is  attractive  even  when  he 
is  tired  of  the  world;  for  Tolstoi  the  object  here,  as 
ever,  is  to  extol  the  superiority  of  nature  to  the  results 
of  artistic  culture.  And  to  this  love  and  admiration  for 
nature  we  may  attribute  the  fact  that  the  Caucasian 
landscape,  which  in  “The  Hero  of  Our  Time”  was  only 
a  frame,  in  “  The  Cossacks  ”  presents  itself  identified 
with  the  freshness  and  force  of  the  nature  of  man  :  “the 
everlasting  snow,  untouched  by  man,  and  the  exalted 
woman  in  her  primitive  beauty.”  .  .  .  “  I  rejoiced  over 
her  as  over  the  glory  of  the  mountains  and  of  the 
heavens,  and  could  not  help  rejoicing,  for  she  is  as  beau¬ 
tiful  as  they.”  .  .  .  “  Perhaps  I  love  in  her  the  nature, 
the  embodiment  of  everything  that  is  beautiful  in 
nature,”  etc.  We  feel  that  something  besides  self- 
glorification  is  dear  to  the  author,  namely  fidelity  to 
reality. 

It  is  this  fidelity  to  reality  which  moves  us  every¬ 
where  in  Tolstoi:  —  First,  where  the  author’s  own  charac¬ 
ter  is  traced  in  his  created  characters,  as  in  certain  heavy 
natures,  strong  and  awkward  men,  who,  without  any 
special  stimulus,  for  a  long  time  allow  themselves  to  float 
with  the  stream,  until  an  awakening  of  their  religious 
natures  calls  all  their  best  qualities  into  action :  Bezukho'i 
in  “  War  and  Peace,”  Levin  in  “  Anna  Karénina,”  are 
examples.  In  the  next  place,  where  Tolstoi  describes 
the  every-day  life  of  strange  natures,  as  in  the  finished, 
bitterly  veracious  story  “Family  Happiness,”  which  is 
strongly  effective,  simply  and  only  in  the  development 
of  the  way  in  which  the  illusions  of  life  spring  up,  are 
nourished  and  lost.  It  describes  the  growth  and  blos¬ 
soming  of  love,  then  the  slow  transformation  which 
degrades  the  love  of  the  two  consorts  to  friendship,  and 
at  last  allows  tenderness  for  the  children  to  displace 


HIS  HISTORICAL  PORTRAITS. 


341 


every  other  sentiment.  It  is  every-day  life,  without  even 
a  single  romantic  event. 

Next  to  fidelity  to  reality  the  quality  of  divination, 
the  gift  of  being  able  to  anticipate,  is  noteworthy  in 
Tolstoi.  He  possesses  the  extremely  rare  historical 
imagination. 

It  is  quite  true  that  he  has  a  spirit  sufficiently  modern 
not  to  make  any  attempts  to  conjure  up  distant  persons, 
who  have  long  since  died.  He  does  not  go  farther  back 
than  to  an  epoch  where  he  is  assisted  by  a  tradition  still 
vigorous.  Nevertheless,  his  description  of  a  past  historic 
period,  like  that  of  Alexander  the  First,  is  admirable. 
His  historical  portraits  make  an  impression  as  if  the 
picture  was  painted  on  a  foundation  of  personal  experi¬ 
ences.  His  Napoleon,  his  Ivutuzof,  are  instances. 

There  are  perhaps  in  all  only  two  artistic  descriptions 
in  which  the  appearance  of  Napoleon  makes  the  impres¬ 
sion  of  entire  truthfulness,  and  which  are  drawn  with 
genuine  art.  One  is  Alfred  de  Vigny’s  admirable  de¬ 
scription  of  Napoleon’s  conversation  with  the  Pope,  in 
Servitude  et  Grandeur  Militaires;  the  second  is  the  scene 
in  “  War  and  Peace,”  where  Napoleon  gives  an  audience 
to  the  llussian  envoy  Balashof.  It  is  written  as  if  the 
author  was  present  unseen. 

How  expressive  is  such  a  little  trait  as  this  of  Napo¬ 
leon  :  “  His  white  and  fat  neck  was  set  off  sharply 
against  the  black  collar  of  his  uniform,  from  which 
there  came  a  strong  smell  of  eau-de-cologne.”  We  feel 
the  parvenu  in  this  paltry  detail. 

Tolstoi’s  Kutuzof  is  a  characteristic  picture  of  the 
same  rank.  Nevertheless,  however  eminent  it  is  as  a 
work  of  art,  it  certainly  has  great  defects  as  a  portrait. 
It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that,  for  national  and  religious 
reasons,  the  author  has  placed  too  high  an  estimate  on 


342 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


Kutuzof,  and  too  low  an  estimate  on  Napoleon.  What 
is  emphasized  in  Napoleon  is  the  violence  and  the  fool¬ 
ish  arrogance  which  unconsciously  stand  before  a  fall ; 
what  we  lack  the  impression  of  is  of  the  force  of  his 
genius.  In  Kutuzof,  even  inaction,  nay,  imbecility,  is 
extolled  as  the  expression  of  a  profound  knowledge  to 
what  extent  matters  go  as  they  will  or  rather  as  they 
must,  without  the  interference  of  any  single  man  having 
any  special  effect  one  way  or  the  other. 

This  partiality,  however,  depends  entirely  on  Tolstoi's 
peculiar  views  of  life.  Without  the  nervousness  or 
exaltation  of  Dostoyevski,  he  is  just  as  far  as  the  latter 
from  having  a  reverence  for  human  intelligence  and  for 
political  or  scientific  greatness. 

In  Germany  authors  believe  in  reason  and  culture,  in 
England  on  the  independent  power  of  the  individual, 
in  France  on  abilities,  in  the  North  on  morality;  Tolstoi, 
as  Russians  so  frequently  are,  is  impressed  with  the 
insignificance  of  the  single  man  in  the  presence  of  the 
universe.  He  cherishes  a  reverence  for  the  universe 
and  for  fate,  but  has  none  for  science,  art,  or  culture. 

In  his  view  nothing  depends  on  science  or  art.  No, 
life  and  death  are  two  great,  earnest,  inscrutable  things. 
The  great  sermon  which  life  and  death  daily  preach  into 
the  ear  of  the  author  stifles  the  noise  of  the  whole  earth 
for  him.  The  understanding  of  man  seems  to  him  so 
weak  in  the  face  of  the  enigma  of  life  that  the  simplest 
intelligence  here  is  no  better  than  the  highest. 

And  the  will  of  man  is  to  be  counted  as  nothing  in 
regard  to  the  irresistible  stream  of  historic  events.  It  is 
not  the  leader  of  the  army  who  in  reality  leads  the  army  ; 
fate  drives  it  on  ;  the  battle  is  won  or  lost  without  his 
intervention,  by  the  play  of  the  secret  impelling  power. 

A  scene  typical  of  Tolstoi  is  that  where  the  wounded 


ms  PESSIMISM. 


343 


Prince  Andrei,  lying  stretched  out  on  the  battle-field, 
looks  up  to  the  heavens.  Napoleon,  with  his  suite,  stops 
by  the  side  of  the  wounded  man.  The  now  feeble  man, 
whose  admiration  for  Napoleon  had  hitherto  been  so 
boundless,  finds  him  small  and  unimportant  in  compari¬ 
son  with  what  is  going  on  between  his  own  soul  and  the 
immeasurable  heavens. 

It  is  significant  that  hardly  any  other  author  has  de¬ 
scribed  so  frequently  and  with  such  confidence  and  ver¬ 
satility  as  Tolstoi,  how  people  die.  He  is  equally  con¬ 
versant  with  the  feelings  which  precede  suicide,  —  man’s 
as  well  as  woman’s  —  with  the  emotions  with  which  the 
wise  and  the  foolish  in  sickness  await  the  coming  of 
death,  and  with  the  terror  and  the  final  release  which 
death  brings  in  battle. 

From  Tolstoi’s  lack  of  scientific  culture  and  his  weak 
faith  in  the  intelligence  of  man  results  the  ideal  he  has 
created  for  himself  of  a  return  to  nature.  It  does  not 
correspond  to  Rousseau’s,  for  it  has  a  religious  charac¬ 
ter  ;  but  it  reminds  one  of  it.  The  peasant  Karatayef, 
in  “  War  and  Peace,”  makes  so  deep  an  impression  on 
Bezukhoi,  not  only  because  he  is  a  primitive  creation 
but  because  he  has  the  resignation  and  the  Christian 
brotherly  love  which  the  civilized  man  lacks. 

Tolstoi  is  a  pure  romanticist  to  the  extent  that  he 
does  not  seek  his  ideal  before  us,  but  behind  us,  in  the 
lowest  classes.  He  is  not  a  pure  pessimist,  in  so  far  as, 
however  black  the  situation  appears  to  him,  he  con¬ 
tinually  tries  to  embody  his  ideal,  and  preaches  its 
realization  to  others.  In  this  the  pessimism  which 
appears  in  his  writings  differs  sharply  from  that  in 
which  in  our  day  the  French  literature  has  culminated, 
the  most  characteristic  expression  of  which  is  found  in 
the  writings  of  Huysmann,  a  conscientious  artist  and  a 


344 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


man  without  hope.  The  pessimism  of  the  latter  consists 
in  his  being  tired  of  life  and  disgusted  with  it.  All 
that  he  lias  seen  and  experienced  was  to  an  intolerable 
degree  vulgar  and  low.  He  suffers  and  is  wounded  by 
everything  which  there  presents  itself  to  his  view,  and 
it  is  very  significant  that  he  has  created  a  character  in  a 
novel,  who  retires  to  a  solitary  life,  to  whom  the  reality 
is  so  hateful  that  he  replaces  the  natural  by  the  artifi¬ 
cial,  even  natural  by  artificial  light,  and  who  from  the 
simple  classics,  which  are  not  spicy  enough  and  which  he 
despises,  resorts  to  the  very  unnatural  writers. 

With  this  radical  pessimism  the  pessimism  of  Tolstoi 
has  one  point  of  contact :  the  dislike  of  what  is  plain 
and  rational.  But  for  the  typical  French  pessimist  life 
is  a  worthless  thing,  whose  enigma  is  not  worth  ponder¬ 
ing  over.  The  only  thing  which  the  pessimists  of  this 
literature  honor  and  love  is  art.  And  the  same  thing 
which  they  loathe  in  real  life,  they  honor  when  they  find 
it  in  art.  For  only  where  the  work  of  art  almost  exclu¬ 
sively  represents  that  which  in  itself  is  purely  common¬ 
place  and  ungraceful  are  they  sure  that  what  they  love  in 
the  work  is  the  art  itself.  The  lover  of  art  indeed  often 
prefers  the  low  and  the  sordid  as  the  subject  in  order  to 
be  able  to  the  full  extent  to  enjoy  the  art  in  the  manner 
of  its  treatment. 

For  Tolstoi,  on  the  other  hand,  life  is  so  serious  and 
inexhaustible  a  thing  that  his  interest  for  art  was  from 
the  first  infinitesimal,  in  comparison  with  the  interest 
which  he  bestows  upon  the  questions  of  life  and  happi¬ 
ness.  Upon  the  whole,  art  has  never  had  an  independ¬ 
ent  value  for  him,  and  in  his  last  period  he  looks  down 
upon  his  earlier  works  as  far  too  artistic.  He  is  wholly 
absorbed  in  a  kind  of  Christian  socialism  of  a  wholly  per. 
sonal  and  eccentric  nature,  and  it  is  evident  that,  so  far 


HIS  RELIGIOUS  VIEWS  RUSSIAN. 


345 


as  he  gives  art  any  importance,  it  is  only  as  the  organ  of 
the  sound  views  of  life,  as  the  power  which  elevates  the 
people  on  the  largest  scale. 

It  is  impossible  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  a  view  of 
art  which  despises  the  form,  the  style,  even  the  element 
which  makes  the  art  an  art. 

There  can,  however,  be  no  doubt  as  to  which  of  the 
two  constructions  is  best  adapted  to  advance  a  literature 
which  is  not  on  its  decadence,  but  in  full  prosperity  ; 
that  which  regards  literature  as  an  organ  for  ideas,  or 
that  which  cultivates  the  form  of  art  simply  as  form. 

The  teaching  that  art  is  its  own  end  is  sound  enough, 
but  must  not  be  understood  as  sanctioning  speaking  or 
writing  only  for  the  sake  of  speaking  and  writing.  Only 
where  there  are  broad  views  and  great  thoughts  is  there 
to  be  found  in  literature  that  principle  of  life  which 
saves  it  from  being  lost  in  its  barrenness. 

Therefore  the  intellectual  life  of  Russia  is  in  no  dan¬ 
ger  from  Tolstoi’s  more  recent  disdain  of  art. 

Why  speak  of  what  all  know  who  have  in  any  way 
kept  up  with  the  times  :  of  the  great  man's  remorse  for 
the  thoughtless  life  of  his  youth,  which  —  as  his  books 
of  that  epoch  show  —  now  appears  to  him  far  more 
thoughtless  than  it  really  was,  —  of  his  public  confession, 
dignified  and  naive,  the  confession  of  a  contemplative 
man  who  was  not  created  for  a  thinker, — of  his  self-made 
religious  system,  which  adopts  the  instruction  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  about  the  unlawfulness  of  war,  nay,  of  all  armed 
defence,  and  in  which  the  principle,  that  after  the  blow 
on  one  cheek  we  ought  to  turn  the  other  also,  becomes 
its  chief  corner-stone.  That  there  are  very  great  objec¬ 
tions  to  this  is  more  than  evident :  but  what  interests 
us  is  not  that,  but  the  genuine  Russian  character  of  this 
fundamental  idea  and  of  this  predominant  emotion.  It 


346 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


is  as  if  even  this  peace-loving,  utterly  unwarlike  spirit 
of  the  people,  which  is  peculiarly  Russian,  had  become 
instrumental  in  the  development  of  Tolstoi’s  religious 
teaching. 

The  philologian  Carl  Abel  somewhere  says,  after  hav¬ 
ing  given  the  linguistic  characteristics  of  the  Great  and 
Little  Russian  people :  “  There  is  still  a  nationality  in 
Russia  more  important  than  either  of  the  two  already 
mentioned.  This  most  remarkable  kind  of  men  consists 
of  the  higher  classes  of  the  empire.  As  a  fusion  of  all 
the  different  races  which  are  collected  under  the  sceptre 
of  the  Tsar,  these  higher  classes  constitute  one  of  the 
most  gifted,  courageous,  and  enterprising  types  of  man¬ 
kind  produced  anywhere  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  In 
them  sound  Finnish  reason  is  combined  with  Polish 
boldness,  Armenian  sagacity  with  the  German  reflective 
and  methodical  manner  of  thought,  and  to  the  patient 
endurance  of  the  Tatar  is  added  the  suppleness  of  the 
Slav.”  And  he  declares  that  if  Russia  has  accomplished 
much  in  diplomacy  and  war,  it  is  due  to  this  group  of 
leaders.1 

That  interests  Tolstoi  least  because  war  and  diplo¬ 
macy  are  just  the  things  which  do  not  interest  him  at 
all.  And  it  is  to  those  who  have  hitherto  been  under 
the  necessity  of  blind  obedience  to  this  group  of  leaders 
that  his  whole  sympathy  is  secured.  It  is  with  them 
that  he  in  his  employments,  nay,  in  dress  and  exter¬ 
nals,  has  gradually  sought  to  identify  himself,  partly  in 
order  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  their  man¬ 
ner  of  feeling,  and  partly  not  to  look  down  upon  them 
in  any  respect. 

One  of  my  acquaintances,  a  very  dispassionate  jurist, 
who  visited  him  at  his  estate  last  summer,  could  not 
1  Carl  Abel :  Slavic  and  Latin,  p.  51. 


HIS  PRESENT  MODE  OF  LIFE. 


347 


speak  of  his  visit  without  emotion.  Concerning  the 
reports  of  a  decay  in  Tolstors  intellectual  power  he  said : 
“  Tolstoi  has  a  clear,  penetrating  mind,  especially  toler¬ 
ant  of  such  as  think  otherwise,  and  of  an  angelic  good¬ 
ness.  He  reads  everything,  is  interested  in  everything, 
and  in  his  conversation  does  not  attempt  any  propa¬ 
ganda.  Poorly  clad,  half  in  rags,  he  lives  in  his  family, 
which  does  not  share  in  his  convictions,  but  which 
honors  and  idolizes  him.  His  wife  is  an  intelligent 
woman,  an  excellent  mistress  of  her  house,  a  house 
which  is  kept  up  in  grand  style.  The  sons,  practical 
men,  take  care  of  the  estate.  The  daughter  is  beautiful, 
worldly ;  in  her  very  elegant  costume  she  goes  out  to 
walk  with  her  half-dressed  father,  and  worships  him.” 

The  people  who  surround  him  at  the  present  time 
consist  of  three  classes  :  the  half-mad,  who  see  in  him 
what  they  want  to  see,  and  who  get  out  of  his  words 
what  they  wish.  In  the  second  place,  the  good-for- 
nothings,  who  come  to  profit  by  his  benevolent  disposi¬ 
tion,  and  who  are  often  discontented,  since  he  cannot 
satisfy  all  their  demands.  Finally,  the  correspondents 
of  the  different  newspapers,  who  write  about  him  en¬ 
tirely  according  to  the  tendency  of  the  paper  to  which 
they  contribute. 

Tolstoi  teaches,  above  everything  else,  that  people 
ought  to  be  happy  just  as  they  ought  to  be  pure.  To 
be  happy  we  must  have  as  few  necessities  as  possible. 
Hence  the  return  to  the  primitive  condition,  which  he 
finds  in  the  life  of  the  peasant,  which  is  so  simple. 

The  moralizing  propensity  has  been  strong  in  Tolstoi 
from  the  beginning.  It  is  always  to  be  found  in  his 
writings,  except,  perhaps,  in  some  of  his  very  earliest 
little  stories,  like  “  Lucerne.”  It  is  unmistakable  in 
“  War  and  Peace ;  ”  it  is  very  strongly  stamped  on 


348 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


“Anna  Karenina,”  where  it  even  weakens  the  result. 
The  moral  lesson  which  we  should  deduce  appears  quite 
too  distinctly  in  his  sketches.  In  other  words :  the  fixed 
idea  of  the  generations  of  the  past  is  traced  here ;  the 
idea  of  punishment :  thus  it  goes,  when,  etc.  Cause  and 
effect,  without  its  being  expressly  so  stated,  become 
transformed  to  guilt  and  punishment. 

Of  late  Tolstoi  has  devoted  his  efforts  to  writing 
for  the  people.  He  has  determined  to  turn  to  the  hun¬ 
dred  million  instead  of  to  the  upper  ten  thousand. 
He  has  written  a  series  of  short  narrative  legends,  sym¬ 
bolical  stories  and  tales,  which  from  his  disinterested¬ 
ness  are  sold  for  about  one  cent  (H  kopeks)  for  each 
number,  and  which  are  intended  to  give  to  the  Russian 
peasants  and  workmen,  who  are  now,  for  the  first  time, 
awakening  from  a  sleep  of  a  thousand  years,  the  food 
which  is  suited  to  their  minds  and  the  ideas  which  they 
need. 

These  brief  writings  are  not  reading  for  us  who  have 
a  different  culture.  But  the  great  peasant  drama  of  last 
year,  “  The  Power  of  Darkness,”  stands  far  above  these 
didactic  sheets.  Perhaps  it  is  the  masterpiece  of  this 
great  eccentric  and  independent  thinker.  By  its  poetic 
meaning  it  belongs  to  the  literature  of  the  world,  nay, 
so  far  as  the  dramatic  literature  is  concerned,  marks  the 
discovery  of  a  new  world  of  material. 

Although  this  play  has  the  wonderful  quality  that 
there  is  not  a  single  repartee  which  cannot  be  under¬ 
stood  by  the  ignorant  and  untaught,  it  is  food  for  the 
most  cultured. 

It  is  a  peculiarity  of  Tolstoi,  with  his  lack  of  scien¬ 
tific  endowments,  that  his  thought  is  not  able  to  pene¬ 
trate  the  economical  causes  of  unhappiness  and  misery. 
No  one  who  has  read  his  essay  “On  the  Importance  of 


THE  POWEIl  OF  DARKNESS. 


349 


Art  and  Science,”  that  is,  its  unimportance,  this  attempt 
of  a  self-taught  moralist  to  pass  judgment  on  things 
which  are  out  of  the  scope  of  his  intellect,  will  be 
surprised  that  Tolstoi  regards  money  as  the  root  of  all 
evil.  With  his  own  hand  he  does  all  sorts  of  service  for 
the  poor ;  but  he  never  assists  them  with  money.  He 
wastes  his  time  in  helping  an  old  woman  set  up  her 
stove,  but  does  not  give  her  the  ruble  or_  two  which  she 
needs  to  get  the  stove  set  up  better  and  more  solidly. 

He  is  himself  rich  and  has  a  large  income,  but  he  makes 
use  of  the  expression  that  money  affairs  belong  to  the 
domain  of  his  wife.  He  never'has  any  money  about  him, 
only  now  and  then  gets  from  his  home  fifteen  kopeks  to 
pay  for  a  bath  in  one  of  the  bath-houses  for  the  common 
people. 

In  the  play  “  The  Power  of  Darkness  ”  there  is  a  trace 
of  this  eccentricity.  We  notice  Akim’s  indignation  when 
Mitritch  explains  to  him  how  it  is  that  money  put  iu  the 
bank  draws  interest.  All  matters  of  interest  and  of 
banks  are  in  his  view  a  delusion.  The  author  is  to  be 
heard  here  through  the  old  peasant. 

Otherwise,  with  exemplary  self-control  he  keeps  him¬ 
self  concealed  behind  his  characters,  and  the  play  is  a 
great  work  in  its  exceptional  sense  of  reality  and  the 
great,  kind  heart  which  beats  in  it. 

Here  we  look  into  a  world  where  no  one  has  the  bear¬ 
ings,  where  no  one  really  knows  anything  about  what 
lies  beyond  the  confines  of  the  country  town,  not  even 
the  soldier  who  has  roamed  about.  And  how  the  women 
are  regarded  can  be  seen  from  what  is  said  about  them 
in  one  of  the  conversations  :  “  There  are  millions  of  them 
in  the  Russian  land,  and  all  as  blind  as  moles ;  no  knowl¬ 
edge  but  a  little  superstition ;  when  they  die,  they  are 
just  as  wise  as  when  they  were  born.” 


350 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


It  is  against  this  “  Power  of  Darkness  ”  that  Tolstoi 
has  directed  the  beams  of  light  from  the  blaze  of  his 
fantasy  and  his  enthusiasm.  It  is  with  this  that  he,  as 
the  educator  of  the  people,  has  begun  the  fight.  Behind 
his  Asgaard’s  wall  he  kindles  the  bright  fire  into  which 
the  Spirit  of  Darkness,  the  giant  in  the  Eagle’s  home,  is 
to  fall  in  the  future.1 

In  the  Russian  monograph  “  Count  L.  N.  Tolstoi  and 
a  Criticism  of  his  Works,”  we  have  collected  all  the  por¬ 
traits  extant  of  the  great  author.  There  is  a  group  of 
the  year  1856,  in  which  the  young  officer  is  painted  with 
Grigorovitch,  Gontcharof,  Turgenief,  and  Druzhinin,  and 
the  keen  author  of  comedies,  Ostrovski,  and  another  of 
the  year  1857,  in  which  the  group  consists  of  Turgenief, 
Sollogub,  Tolstoi,  Niekråsof,  Grigorovitch,  and  Panayef. 
There  is  an  admirable  portrait  by  Kramskoi,  and  a  great 
many  photographs  from  later  years. 

We  can  thus  trace  how  this  characteristic  head  has 
been  moulded  and  developed  from  within.  There  is  the 
officer,  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  with  the  military  mus¬ 
tache  and  the  regularly  cut,  smooth  hair,  and  the  already 
peculiar,  discontented,  penetrating  look,  the  expressive 
mouth,  querying  and  uncertain,  —  a  face  which  shows 
uneasiness,  betraying  a  shy  and  violent  spirit.  All  the 
others  seem  so  tame,  so  mild  by  the  side  of  him,  capri¬ 
cious  as  he  seems,  and  naif  and  defiant. 

Years  roll  on,  developments  take  place,  and  this  head 
becomes  changed.  A  quality  appears  in  it  which  con¬ 
quers  all  the  others :  commanding  power.  In  the  later 
pictures  this  expression  becomes  very  strong.  There  is 
Kramskoi’s  portrait,  when  Tolstoi  was  between  forty 
and  fifty  years  of  age,  with  the  smooth,  black  hair  fall- 

1  Tolstoi’s  works  have  been  translated  into  Danish,  German,  French, 
and  English. 


HIS  PORTRAITS. 


351 


mg  in  waves  over  the  temples,  the  heavy,  dark,  full 
beard,  which  covers  his  throat  and  collar,  with  an 
expression  of  concentrated  depth  of  understanding  and 
strength.  There  is  no  more  uncertainty  about  this 
mouth,  no  uneasiness  in  the  brow ;  the  look  is  the  look 
of  the  seer  and  of  the  thinker  penetrating  into  the  very 
marrow  of  things.  Then  there  is  the  portrait  of  Tolstoi 
at  his  writing-desk,  a  wonderful  picture  from  the  great¬ 
ness  of  his  style  and  bearing.  The  greatest  gravity  and 
absorption  shine  out  from  it.  Every  one  who  sees  the 
portrait  feels  that  what  that  man  writes  is  not  vanity,  is 
not  idle  words,  but  strong,  mighty  words,  worth  ponder¬ 
ing  over.  And  there  is  still  one  later  portrait,  where 
the  expression  of  the  eyes  and  about  the  mouth  comes 
very  near  to  being  frightful,  appalling,  it  is  so  strong 
and  commanding.  The  heavy  eyebrows  almost  seem  to 
threaten ;  the  thick  beard,  growing  freely,  and  be¬ 
sprinkled  with  gray,  reminds  one  of  the  old  prophets. 

In  the  series  of  illustrations  in  the  book  come  also 
the  latest  portraits  :  the  well-known  photograph  of  the 
sixty -year-old  Tolstoi  as  a  muzhik,  in  the  dark  blouse  of 
the  peasant,  with  the  leather  belt  around  his  waist,  with 
his  hair  parted  in  the  middle  of  his  forehead  in  the 
fashion  of  the  Russian  peasant,  with  his  forehead  fur¬ 
rowed  with  deep  wrinkles  curving  down  in  the  middle, 
the  dishevelled,  snow-white  beard,  extending  almost  down 
to  where  the  arms  are  crossed  upon  the  breast,  and  the 
anxious  look  of  the  mystic,  whose  firmness  reminds  us 
of  the  gaze  of  the  careworn. 

Last  of  all  is  Riepin’s  masterly  painting,  which  is 
also  known  in  other  lands  from  the  cliromo-lithographs  : 
a  broad  field  with  a  background  of  woods ;  peasants  are 
ploughing  in  the  middle  distance ;  in  the  foreground 
Tolstoi  as  a  peasant  is  ploughing  in  the  Russian  style, 


352 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA. 


with  a  white  horse  harnessed  to  an  antique  wooden 
plough,  leading  by  a  halter  another  white  horse  behind 
him,  which  draws  the  harrow.  For  it  is  Leo  Nikola- 
yevitch  himself,  this  strong,  broad-shouldered  frame, 
with  the  soft  white  hat,  which  protects  the  sunken  eyes 
from  the  sun,  with  the  blue  peasant’s-frock,  open  about 
the  neck,  exposing  his  naked  breast,  and  the  high  boots, 
which  sink  in  the  rich  mould.  There  is  nothing  here 
which  reminds  one  of  the  count,  of  the  born  aristocrat. 
The  thick,  broad  nose,  the  heavy  jaws,  are  those  of  the 
Russian  peasant.  But  what  a  wonderful  peasant !  this 
bearing,  this  immense  force  in  simplicity !  It  is  the 
peasant  in  contemplation,  as  a  hero,  as  a  genius,  as  a 
civilizer.  It  is  the  Scythian  prince  of  Herodotus,  Kola- 
Xais,  the  Prince  of  the  Ploughshare ;  it  is  Mikula,  the 
child  of  the  village,  the  hero  of  agriculture,  with  the 
wonderful  plough,  who  draws  his  furrow  rich  in  bless¬ 
ings  in  the  boundless  Russian  plain.  It  is  the  national 
hero  Ilia  of  Murom  himself,  risen  from  his  death  of 
a  thousand  years  to  cultivate  again  the  Russian  soil  and 
earth,  —  he  who,  stronger  than  fate,  went  on  the  road  to 
riches  and  “  did  not  become  rich,”  but  was  wholly 
engrossed  in  the  fundamental  Russian  idea  of  commu¬ 
nity. 

Thus  with  Tolstoi  we  turn  back  to  our  first  impres¬ 
sion  of  Russian  intellectual  life  and  literature.  He,  to 
whom  Turgenief  directed  his  last  words  written  with  a 
pencil,  and  whom,  when  dying,  he  addressed  as  “  my 
friend,  the  great  author  of  Russia !  ”  he  in  our  days  is 
the  last  great  one  of  the  group  of  cultivators  in  this 
immense  empire. 

What  is  it  that  he  cultivates  ?  what  is  it  that  all 
these,  young  and  old,  the  men  with  good  will,  prepare 
and  cultivate  ? 


BUS  SI  A  AND  THE  FUTUBE. 


353 


Black  earth,  fertile  land,  new  soil,  grain  soil  .  .  .  the 
broad,  rich,  warm  nature,  .  .  .  the  infinite  expanse  which 
fills  the  soul  with  melancholy  and  hope,  .  .  .  the  incom¬ 
prehensible,  darkly  mysterious,  .  .  .  the  womb  of  new 
realities  and  new  mysticism,  .  .  .  Russia  and  the  future. 


914.7  B317S 


573373 


